"streets are ideally laid out in a line to create the shortest route from point A to point B"

Haha that was the Roman way too. I have seen pictures of old roads where they cut through mountains instead of going around them.

They have destroyed the Rio Grande here in the us by trying to direct it. Since it is the border between Texas and Mexico in the treaty, if it shifted, that would be the new border so they channel through a set path so that doesn't happen. There is a little national monument on one the spots where it shifted that I went to once.