How do you fix a stroad? • Hacker News Board

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#121

Post by Rendello » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

arsome wrote: post #115

dougmwne wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The itty-bitty bits of America that have any kind of walkable community are incredibly expensive. It’s basically the equivalent of avoiding mediocre American factory food by doing all your shopping at Whole Foods. Why does it have to be a rare luxury to taste what the Europeans have in overflowing abundance?

Because what they have flowing in abundance is a loss in many other ways. Public transit is a generally a worse experience in all but the most urban of places, and even then there's often enough problems that make it significantly less desirable. Biking in the winter? Doable, but also pretty miserable in much of the world. People like personal transportation and big detached houses with yards. Car-centric cities are…

For anyone interested in what _winter_ biking infrastructure could look like, some places in Finland have done a great job. Not for everyone, but popular nonetheless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#122

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #34

As a fun note, I immediately recognized the location of this stroad pictured. I live relatively close to it. There's been a lot of new development there recently. They just redeveloped a large chunk of the area including launching a major Costco and an Amazon Fresh. I would honestly say it's a pretty healthy travel thoroughfare. It gets backed up during rush hour, but even interstates do here, so that's not unusual.

Here's the location, satellite view:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7892469,-88.1325316,17z/data...

The nearest true business / shopping district would seem to be downtown Naperville, here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Downtown+Naperville,+55+S+...

About 2 mi / 3.2 km from the intersection pictured.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#123

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

rdtwo wrote: post #36

jimmaswell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big, climate controlled, pedestrian-only space packed full of different kinds of shops isn't pedestrian-friendly? Give me a break. On the subjective side I think a lot of them look pretty nice.

American malls are islands. Europes malls tend to be hearts of networks

There are (or were) malls in central business districts, say in downtown San Francisco or Chicago. These often have flagship stores, and frequently serve business travellers and tourists (in-country and international).

There are definitely more outlying malls away from downtowns.

Both have been suffering badly for years, and more so during the COVID pandemic.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#124

Post by danny_codes » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #114

wetpaws wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo is not a small town by any measure, and neither is the most of Europe.

Tokyo does not look like the ideal in the article, of small towns strung out along roads.

I'm not sure where you got this model.

It's not that small towns are strung out along roads. Rather, the town itself becomes a nexus for walk/bike-ability. Instead of every trip to the grocery store, movie theater, and gym being taken by car, the vast majority of trips are taken by walking or biking. This isn't to say there aren't cars in town: on the contrary, roads exist, ideally going around heavily trafficked areas. This lets the roads focus on being roads (getting people from place to place) and the streets focus on being streets (allowing people to walk, bike, and "experience the world", in the parlance of "Not Just Bikes".

Of course, the next town over (let's say it's 20 miles away) will be "down the road", with a both a road and a train connecting them.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#125

Post by dntrkv » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

zoe4883 wrote: post #119

pcmoney wrote: post #79

Has anyone ever put a picture of a stroad up as art/instagram etc like you see with downtown NYC, Paris, small european villages, shanghai, rural mountain towns, old downtowns in America etc? Of course not. It is the McDonald’s of city planning. Cheap, ugly, bad for you but also shockingly expensive once the medical/infrastructure maintenance bill comes due. Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesth…

Downtown NYC and Paris are ugly, I will take our local roads anytime.

Yeah they're so ugly that people fly in from all over the world to take photos there.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#126

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #46

"Stroad" seems to be a recently popularized by strongtowns. I'm curious if anyone has actually managed to measure this sort of thing? My suspicion is that it "stroads" are essentially to-wide streets, and it should be possible to find research indicating that streets should be narrower, because widening them causes people to drive too fast. I was only able to find the following, coverage, though: https://usa.streetsb…

The word makes very limited appearance in the Google Ngram English 2019 corpus:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=stroad&year_st...

I suspect most of those are spurious.

Google Trends tends to be better for terms coined / come into common usage after the year 2000.

Even that's pretty spotty:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore#q=stroad

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#127

Post by seoulmetro » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

trinovantes wrote: post #75

The Not Just Bikes youtube channel was quite the rabbit hole. It has convinced me that I really hate North American car-centric cities. It's a shame there's basically no country in the anglosphere designed for pedestrians like most European countries.

That's its job. It's there to outrage you, but the reality is it doesn't teach you to do much else. The reality is, low density living in countries like the US rely on this structure.

The same way most of South Korea, including low density zones is built using large apartment blocks... because that's just what works for the country and there's no such thing as being a jack of all trades.

I've disliked the apples to oranges and emotional bias present in those videos since the start. But people eat it up. Shame.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#128

Post by yarnton99 » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #79

Has anyone ever put a picture of a stroad up as art/instagram etc like you see with downtown NYC, Paris, small european villages, shanghai, rural mountain towns, old downtowns in America etc? Of course not. It is the McDonald’s of city planning. Cheap, ugly, bad for you but also shockingly expensive once the medical/infrastructure maintenance bill comes due. Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesth…

Just trying to find some positive examples of American small towns. As a European, if I were to relocate to the US, where would I find strong town communities?

I know for example Ithaca, NY, might qualify. Other examples in the South, Midwest, etc?

Also stroads are not just an American problem. I have found horrible stroads in places where you would never expect them such as Oxford or Copenhagen.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#129

Post by refurb » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #79

Has anyone ever put a picture of a stroad up as art/instagram etc like you see with downtown NYC, Paris, small european villages, shanghai, rural mountain towns, old downtowns in America etc? Of course not. It is the McDonald’s of city planning. Cheap, ugly, bad for you but also shockingly expensive once the medical/infrastructure maintenance bill comes due. Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesth…

This is so out of touch it's kind of offensive.

Unlike you, most people struggle to make ends meet, are happy they have a job and can provide for their family. The upper-class "let's build architecture that inspires" screams "I have more money and time than I know what to do with".

It's like looking down at people who eat at McDonald's (I got your reference!) with comments like "these folks wouldn't know good food if their life depended on it!".

Sorry not everyone can be rich and have the same "refined" sense of taste that you do. But they're too stupid to know what's best for them, right?

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#130

Post by refurb » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

trinovantes wrote: post #75

The Not Just Bikes youtube channel was quite the rabbit hole. It has convinced me that I really hate North American car-centric cities. It's a shame there's basically no country in the anglosphere designed for pedestrians like most European countries.

That's because people like their cars. You may not, but many people do. And I've traveled in many countries and it's not like cars are uniquely American.