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The Stroad

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Stroad

#331

Post by drivers99 »

closeparen wrote: post #280
mcv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they need to move the commercial property closer to the leaves. Not at the leaves, but close enough that the distance is still walkable. That would really reduce car traffic, and therefore reduce stress on the road capacity.

It would bring mild traffic to parts of the tree that currently have almost zero, which is unacceptable to the people living on them.

There's a great video about that too. "The Suburban Traffic Contradiction" by Oh The Urbanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqQw05Mr63E

One of the interesting points is that there is a commonality between those suburbans and people who want walkable urban areas: few of us want to deal with the problems of lots of cars driving around us.

Re: The Stroad

#332

Post by greenn »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #249
dghlsakjg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cognitive dissonance is wild. The busiest and most economically vibrant areas in the US are the ones that deprioritize cars (main streets, downtowns, outdoor malls, bar districts). But if you try to change an existing area into a less car friendly area people absolutely lose their heads

Right, but like everything else in the US right now, the split is obvious along political lines. People who like cities are left, people who like suburbs/rural living/driving everywhere are right.

Huh, guess I'm "right" then. Weird that my voting history would indicate otherwise, but I don't like city living so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: The Stroad

#333

Post by hannasanarion »

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.

Dense walkable places exist, but they are diminishing because in most places they are illegal to construct. No new walkable places have been built for nearly a half century, and many of our old ones have been bulldozed to make room for empty parking lots and jammed highways.

Re: The Stroad

#334

Post by refurb »

quadrangle wrote: post #296
refurb wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their reason often came down to “raising a family of four in 700 sq ft 2 bed kinda sucks”. For the same amount of money they could get a 1,100 at ft home, with a yard, lots of families close by and good schools. You cant “build more housing” if the desirable housing is a single family home with a yard. SF is out of space. Like I said in my other reply, countries where raising a family in a 2 bed apartment is mostly d…

Seems we're talking past one another. The point isn't that people can afford whatever they want, the point is that people don't directly want car-dependent suburban sprawl. Sure, people want the impossible: quiet beautiful wilderness where you can also walk to school, groceries, concerts, and medical centers. But the question at hand is actually how much of all the good things we are capable of having. And we really…

People want the impossible, but if they can't have it they will make trade-offs. And it's pretty apparent the trade off is "I'll put up with having to get a car in order to get more space at an affordable price".

Re: The Stroad

#335

Post by hef19898 »

znowcone wrote: post #313
hef19898 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does sound like the Ruhrpott if I had to guess!

I feel like it could be an elaborate social engineering attack, but yes bingo :)

The Kiosks gave it away! I've never seen such density of them anywhere, incl. Berlin. And definitely not Bavaria! They are pretty cool, so!

Re: The Stroad

#336

Post by Arn_Thor »

bluGill wrote: post #309
knorker wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree that induced demand is nonsense It's not. This is a fact. It sounds like you are trying to reason about this from pure logic, and are not aware that this is an empirical fact. You can only go so far armchair guessing about how city planning "ought to" work. > Demand either exists or it doesn't. To get to the place, yes. To get to the place in a car , no. If you double the capacity of a road network, that me…

Why are you assuming you have to use a car to solve the problem. The problem is people want to get someplace in your city and currently it is inconvenient for them to do so. If people leave your transit system for a car it is because your transit system sucks. Fix that problem. (hint, trains can easily reach speeds 3x faster than cars, stops should not take too long, and there should always been a train almost here f…

> If people leave your transit system for a car it is because your transit system sucks.

A transit system can almost never compete with a vehicle right in your garage taking you exactly to your destination. Unless you live in very rare circumstances, friction-free car travel will be preferable to most people. But car travel is not friction-free of course. You're setting up a goal post that's impossible to reach

Re: The Stroad

#339

Post by mcv »

asdff wrote: post #311
mcv wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're afraid that a mall will create traffic bottlenecks, maybe build those malls so they're easy to reach on foot, by bike, or with public transport. That way you don't get that traffic bottleneck.

People buy shopping carts worth of stuff at malls. That's not exactly easy to schlep on a bike or a bus for most people especially if you are in poor shape. A lot of people in the U.S. today live in walkable areas, but opt to just take a climate controlled car with a spacious trunk 5 mins to the grocery store vs walk 15 minutes one way and back with 25 pounds of groceries in poor weather.

If shops are nearby, you go more often for a quick trip to the shop and buy much less. Lots of Dutch people go shopping on their bike, and that works perfectly fine. And people who really buy a lot, walk home with two big shopping bags. That works too. It has never been a big problem here.

Re: The Stroad

#340

Post by burlesona »

drivers99 wrote: post #234
burlesona wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popularization is more likely the other way around: Strong Towns has been around 12 years, has a huge audience, and is a sponsor and promoter of Not Just Bikes. I agree it’s an exceptional YouTube channel though. :)

On YouTube, Strong Towns has 9.7K subscribers and Not Just Bikes has 425K. NJB’s video about stroads has 1.3M views while Strong Towns’ videos about stroads have 62K and 63K and are 3 and 8 years old. I’ve only seen people talk about stroads online when NJB made his videos. Here’s their newer stroad video though, which is pretty good: https://youtu.be/OZ1HhLq-Huo

Since this wasn’t clear: I was not referring to YouTube audience, where ST makes no effort, but to overall audience across different media. ST primary media are blog articles and podcasts, and the main social channels are Facebook and Twitter.
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