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The Stroad

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Stroad

#181

Post by kgermino »

dagw wrote: post #169
rubidium wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the Midwest.

What are some nice, livable and affordable cities you can recommend in the Midwest where you don't need a car?

I’m in Milwaukee, WI. Houses in my neighborhood are a bit expensive - starting around $300k for a SFH - but you can live a very full life without a car. For myself: we have a car for visiting people outside the city and going to the lumberyard, but groceries, schools, parks, hospital, etc are all in walking distance and downtown is about 10 minutes away on the bus

Re: The Stroad

#182

Post by cycomanic »

himinlomax wrote: post #155
csnover wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 over…

This is similar in the town in Germany where I grew up. When I was a kid they converted the central part of the inner city into a walking mall, no cars allowed (except for delivery traffic outside of certain hours). The shop owners were up in arms, saying it would be the death of the city, everyone would go shopping at big malls outside of town etc.. The exact opposite happened, the city is absolutely packed, people come from far to go shopping there, cafe's everywhere.

Ironically, the city is considering expanding the pedestrian zones and shop owners are bringing forth the same arguments they did 30 years ago, as if they didn't learn anything.

Re: The Stroad

#183

Post by Vinnl »

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.

Similar video (but then an hour long) that I always post together with that channel: What can Seattle learn from Dutch street design? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GA901oGe4

Re: The Stroad

#184

Post by TheJoeMan »

dijit wrote: post #174

Wow, that's a really weird coincidence, I was literally watching (listening) to this video on youtube when I saw this pop up. One thing strikes me though: there's network effects to "Stroads"; in the USA if you designed a shopping district or neighbourhood as being "roads to streets" with limited parking (as is suggested) then the people operating businesses or living in that neighbourhood would be worse off... becau…

Also sadly the moment all the parking is removed from businesses and concentrated in public lots do you really believe it will be free to park? If you’ve ever been to a town like Gatlinburg, Tennessee you’d understand just how nerve-wracking it is to feel comfortable parking on the edge of town. “Oh this is 3 hour parking will we make it back in time”, “oh this lot is $7/hr wow”…

Re: The Stroad

#185

Post by crispyambulance »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #88
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.

Are there any rankings of US cities (not just the major ones) based on some quantitative analysis of these kinds of design principles?

Yes! The "walkability index/score" summarizes a bunch of criteria like density of groceries, retail, public transit, schools and entertainment.

It's easily accessible on real estate websites (like Redfin, https://www.redfin.com/how-walk-score-works), and now I see there's a publicly available dataset as well: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/walkability-index.

Walkability that is commonplace in many towns in Europe, roughly match up with very high 90's (98+) walkability scores in the US.

IMHO, anything below mid-90's is somewhere I would never live. The score is necessarily skewed towards US style living where walkability is relatively rare. So the difference between, say 70 and 40 is almost meaningless from the point of view of a walker.

As far as street design and urban planning goes, the key word is "complete streets" which is an umbrella term that covers rationale, design principles and practical guidance for how to implement a street layout (https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/complete-stree...). This work is based on studies and data, but I've not looked into it.

Re: The Stroad

#186

Post by Vinnl »

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…

And yet somehow the country I live in has proper streets. I see that more often, where things are dismissed as "not viable" in the US even though they actually exist elsewhere.

Re: The Stroad

#187

Post by scrollaway »

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…

What.

No, strong towns "and their ilk" (biased much?) provide an unlimited supply of solutions to a variety of problems. If you're not seeing them it's because you don't want to see them.

There isn't a "now the city is better" red button you can hit. It takes a lot of effort to get there. One of the efforts is in fact a marketing one: you need to spread awareness of where the problems actually are and why they are a problem. Stroads are a good example; I had never realized they were a problem, but since I discovered them I've been noticing them whenever traveling and thinking a lot about the implications and how they could be redesigned in that spot.

Stroads are very difficult to find in western Europe by the way, compared to the US. In some countries they're non existent. Clearly you're mistaken about how they can and will just appear out of nowhere. Maybe things are more nuanced and complex than your three second opinion lets on.

Re: The Stroad

#188

Post by paulgb »

this15testing wrote: post #147
nemetroid wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it might come across that way, but I was happy to see the "Vision Zero" thing in the bottom left. Vision Zero has been a very successful road traffic policy in Sweden. > Vision Zero is based on an underlying ethical principle that "it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system." In most road transport systems, road users bear comp…

I don't think any American city or police department knows what vision zero is. They frequently include the words "vision zero" in their plans or posts, but then car crash deaths continue as normal or even increase. Using Los Angeles as an example: https://ladotlivablestreets.org/programs/vision-zero https://laist.com/news/transportation/2020-traffic-deaths-lo... for the graphic "Traffic violence in Los Angeles" show…

Same in NYC. There was some progress for a few years, but then traffic deaths rebounded. The pandemic gets some blame, though it’s a poor excuse for weak leadership and the trend started before that. “Vision Zero” has become the “thoughts and prayers” of traffic deaths.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/nyregion/traffic-deaths-n...

Re: The Stroad

#189

Post by wffurr »

sokoloff wrote: post #157
timvdalen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The center turning lane isn't there to avoid rear end collisions, which are only problematic due to too-high speeds in a commercial area.

They are about improving throughput.

What makes them dangerous, particularly in the five lane configuration, is the poor visibility for crossing uncontrolled intersections of multiple traffic lanes.

Re: The Stroad

#190

Post by throw0101a »

josephcsible wrote: post #32
throw0101a wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's saying that currently only desktop computers are being built, and they're being shoehorned into both supercomputer applications (modelling weather) and embedded areas (controlling a lightbulb via a Dell OptiPlex). Having two classes of devices would be an improvement of the current situation.

But it's not the case that only stroads are being built. There's plenty of things that are unambiguously streets and plenty of things that are unambiguously roads. If the argument were "not everything should be a stroad", I'd agree, but they're saying they want to eradicate all stroads.

> […] but they're saying they want to eradicate all stroads.

Correct. Because as a sibling comment notes, they are a "compromise" that serves neither purpose very well. See the Not Just Bikes video referenced elsewhere in this discussion for a fuller treatment.

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