Sometimes you roll up to an intersection, and every time the light turns green, the direction you're trying to go already has all lanes filled by another approaching direction. Every time.
Not a morning goes by without a report of "45 minutes/1 hour to the Holland Tunnel." There isn't really a scalable fix for the solution that involves road capacity.
Manhattan is a wonderful place to drive, my favorite place to drive by far; it's how I instinctively drive but can't everywhere else. It's the most sophisticated driving, not the lowest common denominator; people have to focus on what they are doing - don't start texting. Like the rest of the island - more people is more life, more energy. That's why people have loved NYC for centuries. (Sorry to get corny, but there are plenty of songs about it.)
> Not a morning goes by without a report of "45 minutes/1 hour to the Holland Tunnel."
If you stop thinking about NYC driving distances as physical, but in terms of time, that's just how 'long' the Holland Tunnel is.
A common scenario is: you're heading east, want to head north. When space opens up heading north, northbound traffic has a green light and fills it up. When you have a green light, there is no space.
> circle around
This is generally not possible, especially for the kind of intersections that have this problem. There generally is not a short path that would allow you to circle around, and even if there is, it's guaranteed to be completely congested by everyone else trying the same trick.
The shortest route only remains the shortest if a minority take it.
The only time I can imagine this happening is when trying to turn left, at which point the solution is to go past the turn, double back, and approach the intersection so you can make the turn from the right.