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How do you fix a stroad?

strongtowns.org

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Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#231

Post by beerandt »

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…

You're looking for what is known as "the green book" published by aashto

Geometric Design of Highways and Streets

https://aashtojournal.org/2018/09/28/aashto-releases-7th-edi...

But this comes after the traffic and environmental and planning studies, so it's more of a "how" to build, after you've at least gone through some preliminary design and figured out "what" to build.

And yes, there is literally a table (for highways at least) that gives values for lane width vs the "natural speed" that drivers gravitate to.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#232

Post by masswerk »

Animats wrote: post #103

The Strong Towns people want to go back to 1950s midwestern America - small towns strung out along roads, with farms in between. What were all those small towns for ? They were built, mostly, as service centers for the surrounding farms. Today, only 1% of the workforce works on farms, and they can get their stuff from Amazon and Walmart. The need for most of those towns is gone. So they're decaying and disappearing.[…

Mind that Strong Towns isn't about picturesque communities, but about sustainable economics in the face of rising costs of extensive infrastructure and low income generated per area.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#233

Post by TulliusCicero »

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…

> People like personal transportation and big detached houses with yards.

People like these houses so much we have to pass laws banning other types of homes on most of our residential land.

Gotta make sure they don't accidentally demand the wrong type of housing!

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#234

Post by gameman144 »

ehnto wrote: post #190
freddie_mercury wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds exactly like Ho Chi Minh City here in Vietnam. The solution isn't hard -- the government uses imminent domain, takes a few metres of land on each side, and compensates existing owners.

That's usually pretty hard. I guess it depends on your city. But imminent domain can take decades if done with a lot of community backlash.

Not trying to nitpick, but just a heads-up that the term is " eminent domain" (I know it's a pet-peeve when people don't correct me if I'm saying something wrong, but feel free to ignore me if you don't care).

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#235

Post by TulliusCicero »

refurb wrote: post #130
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.

Cars are nice, but I don't think people like being forced to drive because the other options all suck shit.

People like being able to walk and bike places too, IF the walk and bike options are actually decent (in terms of safety/comfort and distance).

And people certainly don't like getting fat, and yet there's a strong link between car-dominant infrastructure and weight. Surprise surprise, getting exercise as part of your transportation is a lot more reliable than getting exercise as leisure.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#236

Post by TulliusCicero »

w0mbat wrote: post #172

I have a house in Sunnyvale, California a few blocks from El Camino Real. It's the ultimate stroad, hundreds of miles long and lined with thriving businesses and I love it. It's getting really quite clean and quiet now a ridiculous proportion of traffic around here is Teslas.

Take it from someone who grew up in Santa Clara: El Camino Real fucking sucks.

Now, many businesses along El Camino Real are great, don't get me wrong. But the road itself is miserable. When we lived in Sunnyvale there was a bigass Korean market literally across the street from us; we'd only drive there, despite it being, again, directly across the street, because that's how painful and dangerous-feeling it was to cross by foot.

This is not a problem we ever had while living in Munich.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#237

Post by refurb »

pcmoney wrote: post #182
refurb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We as a society, in many aspects, used to eat AND build better when we were poorer. It is a matter of desire and priority. Also McDonalds is only cheaper if you’re in a food desert. Which areas that rely on stroads rarely are. Also, notice how the building around stroads and most “modern” buildings get knocked down and rebuilt every 10 years? Seems like something only a rich society could afford to do.

We as a society, in many aspects, used to eat AND build better when we were poorer

Spoken like someone whose never been poor.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#238

Post by TulliusCicero »

takk309 wrote: post #65
beaconstudios wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the argument is that streets and roads serve fundamentally different purposes and thus have different design goals, and stroads do both and thus fail at both. Roads are for transit, getting cars a long distance between interest points, and streets are for navigating within a point of interest like a neighbourhood. Roads want to optimise for higher cruising speed and streets are to optimise for parking, mixed-use with…

Traffic engineer here. Generally there is a hierarchy of roads called functional class. It goes local street - collector - minor arterial - major arterial - freeway. From local to freeway the speeds increase and the land access decreases. Good urban design should connect only roads one "step" apart, that is local roads should only connect to collectors and so forth. Reality is clearly different. I would imagine every…

> Usually local roads are only eligible for local funding where as arterials are eligible for federal funding.

This is part of the problem. Want to build infrastructure to support walking or biking or transit? Fill out a grant, maaayyyybe the feds will help.

Want to build a highway that'll be used as a local road because the area is super low density? Excellent! *Uncle Sam's wallet instantly flies open*

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#239

Post by TulliusCicero »

Aloha wrote: post #173
takk309 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic engineer here. Generally there is a hierarchy of roads called functional class. It goes local street - collector - minor arterial - major arterial - freeway. From local to freeway the speeds increase and the land access decreases. Good urban design should connect only roads one "step" apart, that is local roads should only connect to collectors and so forth. Reality is clearly different. I would imagine every…

Thank you for the informative post! I'll actually defend the stroad, they work fine so long as you don't allow parking, and you limit the driveways to 2-3 per "block" - anything more than that and they cease to function as an street or a road. Often the stroad is just a section with a bunch of businesses on an otherwise well designed arterial road. The pictures they post of supposed stroads look like normal arterials…

> The pictures they post of supposed stroads look like normal arterials to me.

That's because in America, most arterials are stroads. We've gotten used to bad infrastructure.

And yeah it works on some level, sure. American businesses still manage to function, people still manage to do things. But there are a number of major downsides still.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#240

Post by TulliusCicero »

throwawaysea wrote: post #134

Why do you need to “fix” a stroad? Not everyone wants to live in a young bicyclist’s idealistic utopia. The reason people like high speed roads is that it saves time, and time matters. Biking and public transit are both slow compared to cars, and most people like the convenience cars offer. The point to point nature of driving, the faster travel speeds, the protection from weather, the capacity for people/cargo, and…

> The reason people like high speed roads is that it saves time, and time matters. Biking and public transit are both slow compared to cars

*Cities build streets primarily around cars*

You: Look! Cars are more convenient!!

This isn't some iron law of the universe, that cars are faster even for basic errands happens because we choose to make it that way. When I was living on the outskirts of Munich, many short trips to grocery stores and the like would take a similar amount of time for biking and driving, because they design their streets and roads for cars AND bikes AND walking, not mainly just cars like in the US.

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