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The Stroad

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Stroad

#321

Post by bsanr2 »

netrus wrote: post #260
bsanr2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to overtake cyclists specifically for their safety. I figure that the farther I am from them, the lower a chance of a collision there is. If that holds true, then the only options when encountering one is to slow down and possibly impede other traffic, or speed up, overtake, and move away. This works for single cyclists. Groups would be different, but I've never encountered them.

If there is traffic, that means that your spot behind the cyclist will immediately be replaced by another car. If everyone acts like that, the biker caries a bubble of faster-than-average cars with them. Hardly ideal. I propose a different protocol: Slow down, and follow the cyclist until the situation allows to safely overtake the cyclist at a nice distance without speeding up too much. You will still travel faster…

If we're optimizing for the cyclist's safety wrt a "pack" of cars, they themselves should pull over and wait for the "pack" to pass. Otherwise, a driver doing their best to clear the hazard as quickly as possible is the ideal compromise. A cyclist that is impeding the natural flow of traffic with a slower speed than is normal for the road is a danger to himself and others; any individual driver cannot account for the behavior of other drivers, particularly those who might drive recklessly if impeded by others' attempts to wait out a slow cyclist. Your protocol increases the danger, per likely factors.

The other wrinkle to this is that, outside of cities, cycling in America is a luxury sport. The people who partake in it are most in the position to force changes to infrastructure that supports safer cycling. NJB and other similar commentators make it clear that infrastructure improvement, not changes to driver behavior, is the most efficacious way to imrpove cyclist safety.

Re: The Stroad

#322

Post by cozzyd »

treis wrote: post #302
cozzyd wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean City of Chicago has lower property tax rates than suburbs (due to the large amount of taxable commercial property in the city).

Tax rate is only half of the calculation so it's a meaningless number on its own. Plus, there's sales tax and other assorted fees.

At least in Illinois, valuations are determined at the county level, and the majority of sales tax is also county-level. All things being equal, more commercial property (and tourism) moves some of the burden to taxpayers outside the city. Comparing Chicago to the neighboring suburb of Oak Park, sales tax in Chicago is 10.25% vs. 10% in Oak Park, but property taxes are nearly double in Oak Park. Maybe things like rental cars or hotels are taxed less, but that's not a big impact.

Of course property tax rates are inversely correlated with property values so it's a bit tricky to compare, but the point is it's not always true that suburbs have lower taxes than the central city. Transportation costs are also typically much lower in cities (transit fares/passes are typically significantly cheaper than car ownership).

Re: The Stroad

#323

Post by N1H1L »

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…

I remember driving through suburbian Atlanta at night a few months back, and there was this road that was 6 lines wide through a residential area, with a speed limit of 40 mph. That road was legitimately wider and straighter than Interstate 75, which I hopped on to in a few minutes.

While driving through that stroad, I remember thinking that the only people who benefit from this planning disaster is the local PD, as every corner gas station had cop cars hidden with their lights switched off.

Re: The Stroad

#324

Post by eutropia »

treis wrote: post #235
hannasanarion wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that is "choice"? People can only live in places that exist, and places that exist must be constructed in compliance with certain government standards, and the government standards for the US for the last fifty years have been all cars, all the time. In most places, it is illegal to build a house without a garage, or a bar without a parking space for every stool. The law mandates that everyone drive every…

None of this is true. You can easily find dense walkable places to live. You will just pay more money for a much smaller house. Your living expenses will be higher. And you'll have to rely on public transportation which is a pain in the ass when you have small kids. It's easy to see why people choose the suburbs.

People will continue to choose the wildly tax-subsidized option, yes.

If people in the suburbs had to pay enough property tax to recoup their share for the cost of roads, water, sewage, electric, telecoms, mail and other ancillary services to their large, non-productive plot of land, they'd likely consider other options.

Suburbs look nice in the short term, before the roads need repaving and the utilities need major overhauls; but the total lifetime cost to the public far exceeds how much tax they bring in.

Re: The Stroad

#325

Post by emodendroket »

zonotope wrote: post #224
dagw wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

America is _very_ big. Bigger than Europe even. That means that there are lots of different development patterns all across the country. While it is true that most places are car dependent, there are also cities where the majority of people who live there don't even own a car. I lived in Boston/Cambridge Massachusetts for 10 years and New York for 8, and I have never owned a car (or bike). Walking and taking the subw…

That's true but it's also true that the transportation to parts of Boston sucks and outside of it it quickly becomes impossible to get around without a car.

Re: The Stroad

#326

Post by emodendroket »

bluGill wrote: post #307
knorker wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding lanes has been shown (as you agree) to not help the people who want to use the road, as is just induces more demand. So how is it an excuse? If spending billions on new lanes doesn't actually help anyone, that's just government waste.

> Adding lanes has been shown (as you agree) to not help the people who want to use the road, as is just induces more demand. Only when you don't add enough lanes. It hurts some people who are already using the existing lanes, but it helps other people who previously found the trip so painful they didn't take make it at all, but now the level of pain is low enough that they make it. Focusing only on those who are alr…

I think the point here is it's not practical to build enough lanes to ever saturate demand someplace like LA, so it would make sense to build other options besides driving your car everywhere (and then make these options more attractive than driving). These will of course induce demand of their own, but it's easier to meet just because each person traveling in his own car is one of the least space-efficient means of getting around imaginable. That's not necessarily a big deal in the middle of the day, but at rush hour, with countless people heading in the same direction, it doesn't necessarily make sense to keep doubling down on the same strategy over and over.

Re: The Stroad

#327

Post by topkai22 »

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…

The not sure about the multi purpose thing- it might be prohibited by zoning in a lot of spaces by master plans, but it’s been actively encouraged for the last 10-20 years most places I’ve been, at least in infill areas. Also, the lack of “multi-purpose” development can be misleading, as “good” zoning does mix in commercial lots with housing, but they end up developed separately on different lots. The suburban development I live is walking distance to a shopping center with a grocery store, several restaurants, a services, and a park. That’s not 100% common here, but it wasn’t hard to find. The cost was reasonable to, at least until 2020 made the entire market go crazy, regardless of walkability.

Re: The Stroad

#329

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

StrongTowns and Not Just Bikes, and similar sites are 100% nothing but anti-car activism. They will never, ever suggest something that isn’t specifically targeted to reduce car ownership and usage. It’s dressed up in all kinds of other rhetoric but at the end of the day they start with the idea that cars are terrible and everything (literally, everything) they publish or create exists to try to demonstrate it. If you’re bought into that idea already it’s fine, but nobody should pretend they exist for any other purpose than to push that singular agenda.

Re: The Stroad

#330

Post by drivers99 »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #329

StrongTowns and Not Just Bikes, and similar sites are 100% nothing but anti-car activism. They will never, ever suggest something that isn’t specifically targeted to reduce car ownership and usage. It’s dressed up in all kinds of other rhetoric but at the end of the day they start with the idea that cars are terrible and everything (literally, everything) they publish or create exists to try to demonstrate it. If you…

Have you seen Not Just Bikes' latest video? "Why the Netherlands is the Best Country for Drivers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
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