Sandy Blvd as an example of complexity

This is the intersection of SE Ankeny and Sandy in Portland, OR. Actually no — it's the intersection of Ankeny, Sandy, and SE 11th. Ankeny and 11th are part of the normal street grid but Sandy is a diagonal road that cuts right through everything.As a cyclist, I've always hated this intersection so when someone in a bike advocacy Slack group called it "world class", I did a bit of a double take.World class? Huh? I feel like this intersection is a huge pain. Am I crazy? Do other people like this intersection? How could they?Eventually I understood what he meant. The intersection is a pain. Of course it's a pain. You'd much rather cross at a more mundane one on a calm street. Here's an example on Ankeny and 18th a few blocks down.What the cycling advocate meant when he said that the first intersection on Sandy is world class is that given the constraints, he thinks they did a really good job. Like, given that it is a six-way rather than a four-way intersection — that just inherently makes things a whole lot more difficult: weird sightlines, odd angles, more conflict points, long crossing distances, etc. Couple that with the fact that speeds tend to run high on Sandy, and it's not an easy situation. Sure enough, Sandy has a deadly history and is designated as High Crash Corridor by the city of Portland. It even motivated some folks to create the short film Sandy Blvd. - The worst street ever.My instinct in high-complexity situations like this is to simplify. What if we got rid of the complexity? I hate complexity. Is the complexity worth the costs? What if we just... got rid of Sandy?I feel like if you could press a button and immediately get rid of Sandy, for free, with zero costs, it'd probably make sense to push that button. After all, no one designs a diagonal road cutting through a street grid on purpose, right? These diagonals are vestiges of the past, from what I understand. For Sandy in particular it predated the grid design.As a software developer, it really r