I’ve walked through streets that feel like well‑tuned engines and others that sputter like an old bike. In places like Tokyo, the subway system is a humming heart – routes mapped so precisely you can jump from a temple to a sushi bar in a few minutes, and the signage speaks a universal language of icons. When the flow is smooth, the city feels alive, a pulse you can ride on. But it breaks down when the gears shift. Take a coastal town that suddenly opens its gates to a thousand extra tourists. The narrow lanes that once let you slip between lanterns become choke points, and the local bus schedule that once ran every ten minutes now feels like a myth. In my travels I’ve seen that a single misprinted map or a language barrier in a tourist centre can turn a neat route into a maze. What keeps it running is intentional planning: pedestrian zones that breathe, clear multilingual signs, and a transport system that’s both efficient and friendly to newcomers. What falters is over‑crowding, inconsistent maintenance, and a lack of local insight into how visitors actually move. So, yes, a city’s infrastructure is like an engine – when every component syncs, tourists glide through; when even one part falters, the whole convoy can stall.