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The Stroad

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Stroad

#151

Post by timvdalen »

wffurr wrote: post #6
mcv wrote: post #3

I don't think this article is making the point veey clearly, but it is a very important point: roads are for long distance connections at speed, streets are for local traffic: reaching houses, shops, people. These stroads try to do both and fail at both because the goals are contradictory; you can't have high speed traffic with lots of side streets and crossing traffic, bikes and pedestrians. It will be too slow for…

Every time I end up on a five lane road with the center turning lane and tons of curb cuts and cross streets and abutting parking lots, I remind myself that it's one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in.

I had to look up a 'center turning lane'. Is this[1] it? That looks incredibly dangerous.

[1]: https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane

Re: The Stroad

#152

Post by mcv »

bee_rider wrote: post #140
gruez wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might make sense for dump trucks because they're bulky and have poor visibility, but what's the increased risk of passing on the right? The only thing I can think of is marginally worse visibility because the right side is slightly further away from the driver's seat. However, I don't think that's enough risk to justify going out of your way to pass on the right. Having to change lanes to pass on the left carrie…

Some cars have a blind spot on their right. Also, the convention is passing on the left, so people are generally less aware of things going on on their right. Of course bad drivers are almost by definition unpredictable, but if some bad driver is going to absent mindedly merge into you, they will probably do it while you are on their right. In particular, distracted people whose texting has been interrupted by their…

In many countries, it's a hard rule that you need to pass on the left. Passing on the right is only allowed when it's a lane going in a different direction (like an exit), or traffic is moving very slowly (you don't want people changing lanes in a traffic jam to avoid passing on the right).

Re: The Stroad

#153

Post by selfhoster11 »

prawn wrote: post #68
chestervonwinch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Austin Texas, we have lovely signs to remind you of your imminent crash! http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JP...

Our equivalent in Australia is a Black Spot: https://www.snowyvalleys.nsw.gov.au/News-Media/Brungle-Road-...

We used to run this program in Poland too, but new signs haven't been installed since 2003.

Re: The Stroad

#154

Post by nicbou »

ehnto wrote: post #64
hatchnyc wrote: post #14

Anytime I leave the city and spend a few days getting around by car I’m amazed at just how completely exhausting it is to go shopping or run errands in suburbia. I am not sure why exactly, after all I’m just sitting there, but I think all the stop-and-go and waiting 10 minutes at lights trying to get across a stroad intersection to a shop I can see the whole time is a big contributor.

I moved recently to where everything is a car drive away. The constant in an out of the car is exhausting. Not physically but mentally. Conter-intuitively because cars are also weather proof and comfortable, I felt a lot of the inertia is actually in getting out of the car. I found myself just waiting a little while before getting out. I am a fit and healthy individual and it is draining. I tried the ride on and it's…

Driving is active. Public transport is passive. You can just sit there and read.

Re: The Stroad

#155

Post by himinlomax »

csnover wrote: post #45
_robbywashere wrote: post #21

I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.

It was interesting for me to learn how this process happened in Copenhagen and Groningen in the 1960s and 1970s—people were angry, they protested, made death threats.[0] So it seems like re-pedestrianising areas has always made some people very angry everywhere, and that anger may not be so unique or significant a barrier as it might initially seem. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs

Just a few years ago, when Paris decided to pedestrianize (or rather restrict traffic on) rue des Rosiers, a small, commercial street in a historically Jewish neighborhood, shop owners were strongly opposed to it. When the work was completed, foot traffic in the shops doubled almost overnight. You can easily tell by the fact that long queues pop up in front of fallafel shops and delis at peak business hours that overflow in the street and that wouldn't have fit before on the tiny sidewalks.

People are scared of change, even when the benefits are quite obvious. At least it was obvious to me when I was handed an hyperbolic leaflet opposing the change before it was done: I knew pedestrian streets were beneficial to shops, the area has no lack of transportation being in the center of Paris, there's no parking nearby, and you don't get in a car to go buy a damn sandwich in Paris unless you're completely fucking insane.

Re: The Stroad

#156

Post by mcv »

closeparen wrote: post #61
ehnto wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mixed use medium density is my urban nirvana. Anywhere I have been with it just makes so much sense for daily life at person scale. Cars tricked us into thinking life can be comfortable spread across large distances and I think we are suffering in various ways for it. I am reminded of that cartoon where aliens arive on earth, and assume that cars are the dominant species, since so much of our world has been dedicated…

Suburbanites hate cars too, and that’s why they’ll never let you have mixed use. It would perhaps eliminate the snarl in commercial areas, but it would also bring some portion of that traffic into what are now quiet residential sanctuaries.

But American suburbia seems entirely designed around cars. Exactly because there are no shops nearby, you need to take the car for everything. If there were shops around the corner, there would be far less need for cars in these streets.

When I go to the shop, I walk or take my bike. And even here, the shops aren't in my street, but there's a small shopping center (with two supermarkets, a pharmacy, two drugstores, a bakery, a butcher, two organic food shops, a small bookstore, a fast food place, a pizza place, and some other shops) two streets over. It's easy to reach by car, but even easier to reach on foot by the entire neighbourhood they serve.

In the other direction, there's the big shopping street of the next neighbourhood over, still walkable, though it's more than a kilometer so I always take my bike, and there's tons more shops and great restaurants there. It's an older neighbourhood, more a shopping street than a shopping center, and cars constantly clog that street. Maybe less fun to live in that street, but it's still a very popular street to live in. Personally I'd prefer to see cars banned from that street, but maybe that's not an option for some reason.

Still, it's a great neighbourhood and a great shopping street, and it's nice to have not one but two such shopping areas close to my home. (There's a third not far from that second one, which had a fantastic cheese shop and has a daily market.)

Re: The Stroad

#157

Post by sokoloff »

timvdalen wrote: post #151
wffurr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I end up on a five lane road with the center turning lane and tons of curb cuts and cross streets and abutting parking lots, I remind myself that it's one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in.

I had to look up a 'center turning lane'. Is this[1] it? That looks incredibly dangerous. [1]: https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane

It is, but they’re more common on one travel lane each way streets.

When evaluating the danger of such a design, you have to consider the alternatives. You’re probably considering 3/4 head on collisions from drivers misjudging the turn. Those happen, but how many rear-end collisions are avoided?

Re: The Stroad

#158

Post by mcv »

adrianN wrote: post #84
closeparen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have lots of slow and calm streets in American suburbia, and we love them that way. We value this calm so much that we refuse to admit shopping or even multi-family housing to them, for fear of disturbing it. These uses have to go somewhere, so they go where there is no presumption of an entitlement to low traffic, and that’s the road. The businesses hardly complain; they love to be where the greatest numbers of e…

I don't understand how people think that cars zipping by at high speeds is particularly conductive to impulse shopping. When I'm traveling at high speeds I usually have a goal I want to reach quickly and don't have time to follow any impulses.

Exactly. These are two different types of traffic that need to be separated from each other. Maybe have fast 1+1 or 2+2 road in the center for through traffic, with the occasional connection to slow parallel streets to access the shops. Make the center road a level higher or lower so everybody can cross it everywhere without interfering with the through traffic. That way you're still serving both purposes, but a lot more safely and efficiently.

Re: The Stroad

#159

Post by dagw »

kblev wrote: post #77
gibolt wrote: post #57

For anyone interested in this topic, I highly recommend this channel's series. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN... 'Not Just Bikes' has a ton of other great videos on the channel about what infrastructure makes a good city and what makes one hostile to residents.

Great channel, have been following it for some time, a few takeaways from there: - It's the cars that make the cities undesirable - I was shocked how the historical center of London, ON was demolished to the ground and replaced with shacks - Kids should be able to walk to school alone in safety - I live in Europe and I was baffled to learn that multi-purpose developments are disallowed in most of North America. This…

I love how I can just jump on a bike here and be at a large supermarket in 5 minutes

And even when the supermarket/mall is close by in the US, you still can't necessarily walk/bike there. I was visiting a friend who lived in the Midwest and his house was less than a mile from the mall. I asked him how to walk over there, and he admitted he'd never tried. So I set out to try, and the only way I found was by running across a busy 4 lane street without any crossings.

Re: The Stroad

#160

Post by mcv »

treis wrote: post #75
mcv wrote: post #3

I don't think this article is making the point veey clearly, but it is a very important point: roads are for long distance connections at speed, streets are for local traffic: reaching houses, shops, people. These stroads try to do both and fail at both because the goals are contradictory; you can't have high speed traffic with lots of side streets and crossing traffic, bikes and pedestrians. It will be too slow for…

But this isn't how the world works. It's not Simcity where you lay down neat grids of zones and the dutiful citizens follow your orders. People will want to take advantage of cheap(er) land alongside your "road" so that they can own a house while still having reasonable access to the "street". And boom now you have a stroad. Attempting to use zoning to stop that runs into the problem that by and large people don't wa…

I just watched a video in response to this story that explained how zoning in North America is actually too much like SimCity, with very restrictive homogenous zoning and no mixed zoning at all. It's mixed zoning that allows people to live closer to the shops for their daily needs, and that reduces traffic.

These shops aren't on the stroad because the US is an anarchy where everything goes, they're there because it's designed that way. But the design is inefficient and dangerous.

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