So assuming you're in a car, your "optimal car" route involves two right turns (into and out of the driveways), three left turns, and three straights. If you instead went due north and then due east, that would be two left turns (driveways), one right turn, and three straights. Isn't that a strictly better route?
(Also, isn't turning right usually easier than going straight? I often make a right turn when going straight would have been prohibited (due to a red light), but I almost never go straight when turning right would have been prohibited (due to a pedestrian or bicycle to my right whose path I would have crossed).)
If you instead went due north and then due east, that would be two left turns (driveways), one right turn, and three straights. Isn't that a strictly better route?
I assumed turning left into/out of a driveway (i.e. "crossing the street when not on a crossroad") is impossible or at least hard (slow). This is often the case in a dense city. If we're not in a dense city then Taxicab assumption is an error as well.
Picture a circular road on a map. Let's say that my office is at twelve o'clock, my home is at five o'clock, and the post office is at three o'clock.
Now, suppose I have to leave work, pick up a document at home, and take it to the post office to mail it. I know it's faster to walk clockwise home, passing the post office, and then return to it with the letter. But my gut preference is to go counterclockwise, either because of an aversion to retracing my steps, or because that route just ... feels "cleaner" or more efficient somehow, or ... I can't articulate it any better than that.
Does anyone else share this intuition? Is it a manifestation of one or more known/studied effects?