I spend quite a lot of time attacking what I call ‘motorway service station’ path design. More attentive readers of The Spectator may remember this from 2019:
‘You are tooling down a motorway at 75mph and decide to stop for a break… Once off the slip road you face a barrage of signs: Food Court/Fuel/Lorries/Caravans/Coaches/Travelodge/Costa Drive-Thru, each pointing to a different fork. If your attention briefly wavers and you miss one of these bifurcations, you will find yourself hopelessly trapped in the lorry park with no means of return. This is probably what happened to Lord Lucan.’
Evolutionary processes create many answers to the same question, whereas top-down design provides only one
For any parking option in a motorway service station, there is only one correct path to your destination. Make one mistake and you’re doomed. Moreover, the system is riddled with potential bottlenecks: if a van breaks down at the entrance to the food court carpark, the system fails spectacularly.
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