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How do you fix a stroad?

strongtowns.org

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Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#351

Post by throwaway0a5e »

adrianN wrote: post #345
refurb wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in the Strongtowns models there is not space for cars - at least everyone owning a car they only use for weekends. Only the rich own cars. Or those that live outside the urban core. Welcome to our future if Strongtowns has a say.

There is plenty of space for cars if you stack them. That's a rather successful model in Japanese cities. Free surface parking has an outsized negative impact on cities. BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income.

>BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income.

Of course it correlates. Rich households can afford more cars per person and can indulge in specialized vehicles (e.g commuter car).

Rich families have a sedan for each commuting parent and maybe another less specialized car (e.g. minivan or 3-row SUV) that only sees weekend use. Poor families pile into a Saturn.

That the ability of the poor family to own and operate that Saturn confers a far greater standard of living jump than cars 2-N do for the rich family. It also has a much greater impact on the health of the broader economy.

To intentionally place monetary constraints on vehicle ownership would be unwise because you have to price out all the poor before you start making meaningful dents in the (relatively) wealthy professionals who commute across the inner suburbs and into urban environments.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#352

Post by eumenides1 »

alistairSH wrote: post #343
Kiro wrote: post #260

It's funny. As someone who has never been to the US stroads are what define the American urban landscape for me and what I want to experience. They feel really exotic. It's like being in an American movie or TV show.

No, you really don't want to experience them. Transiting them by any means is an exercise in frustration. Cars and trucks clog the asphalt. Sidewalks are few and not interconnected. Two shops might be next to each other, but you have to drive between them because walking is like Frogger brought to life. So you waste your day sitting at red lights, being honked at, and wishing you were anywhere else.

No, the parent comment should experience them in the way I love dystopian fiction, at arms length. They should also make sure it never makes it to their corner of reality.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#353

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mcv wrote: post #313
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it's important to understand how inefficient this is to need a car to cross the street; you need parking space on this side, parking space on the other side, you need to get on and off the stroad, causing wear, interfering with and slowing down the other traffic, which is mostly through traffic that's not interested at all in your house or that Korean market. It's unbelievably inefficient. But is this inefficien…

But is it actually more efficient for others to access that market? The market needs a massive parking lot to accommodate those cars, which means they need a lot of ground. That too is inefficient. I've seen a comparison of two commercial blocks close together; one was old, had a row of old shops along the street and hadn't really been changed much since the 1920s or so. The other was new, modern, had a parking lot s…

> But is it actually more efficient for others to access that market? The market needs a massive parking lot to accommodate those cars....

See my point about the train. Sure people who could formerly just walk across the street or tracks lose but those pieces of infrastructure make the destination far more accessible. You turn one person's 1min trip into a 15min trip but you also turn hours long trips into 15-25min trips. Obviously rail is higher density (and much higher cost) but it's farcical to pretend like the road has no net benefit when clearly it allows more access to the attractive destination (market in this case) even if a few people's access is degraded.

>Elsewhere in this discussion someone pointed out that shops owners often resist attempts to turn their street into a pedestrian-only area, because they fear it will drive away their customers, but every time it turns out to be a boost to those shops.

Perhaps because the changes only ever get implemented where they actually make sense.

Where I live people raised the walk-ability issue twice in recent memory. It got implemented where it obviously made sense (near downtown) and didn't where it didn't (a strip mall area farther away).

> I've seen a comparison of two commercial blocks close together; one was old, had a row of old shops along the street and hadn't really been changed much since the 1920s or so. The other was new, modern, had a parking lot serving a single fast-food restaurant. But that meant it had only a single restaurant, and that single restaurant just didn't make anywhere near as much money as that row of old shops.

This means nothing without knowing the underlying economic circumstances, Buffalo NY vs NYC and all that.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#354

Post by Symbiote »

rjsw wrote: post #333
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was explicitly talking about cities because that's the context of the subthread (and indeed the OP). London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester etc. are installing protected cycle infrastructure that was basically unheard of 10 years ago. I do agree that rural roads are more hostile for cycling now, and your assumption as to where I live is wrong.

I can only speak for Manchester but people here have looked at the cycle infrastructure and taken it as a signal to ride around dressed all in black with no lights. I don't think the accident rate will go down.

That means they feel safe. It's an improvement in infrastructure.

The next step (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) is to ride around in black, with no lights, while drunk.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#355

Post by yawgmoth »

yarnton99 wrote: post #128
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.

Using Ithaca, NY as a qualifier perhaps Ann Arbor or Madison are good examples.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#356

Post by ghaff »

yawgmoth wrote: post #355
yarnton99 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Using Ithaca, NY as a qualifier perhaps Ann Arbor or Madison are good examples.

All of which are college towns to some degree. (Or at least have large universities.)

There are a fair number of smaller cities in the Northeast US with walkable cores. I worked in downtown Nashua for about eight years at one point though I didn't go in all the time. A number of those cores are even rather gentrified with nice restaurants, a park or two, newer housing, and so forth.

Here's the thing though. It's a fairly consistent pattern. The gentrified area is usually pretty small. Things are distinctly less nice when you get out of that area. And you probably need to get in a car to do anything beyond the most basic shopping.

Beyond the Northeast, somewhere like Raleigh NC is the same pattern.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#357

Post by dredmorbius »

rdtwo wrote: post #340
dredmorbius wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seattle used to have a decent downtown mall area but I think a combination of high rents, low traffic, general lawlessness and Covid has kind of destroyed that. Where I was really impressed in Europe is when malls or store complexes were on major subway hubs and stations. People could do their shopping on the way home without ever having to drive.

You'll find the shopping / transit mix in San Francisco (Westfield San Francisco Centre and neighbouring shopping via Muni Metro), New York (5th avenue generally via the subway), and Chicago (Miracle Mile via the El). Few other US cities can claim downtowns with high rates of transit service, though a few exist and even those with poor transit tend to have the best options near city-centres, along with shopping.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#358

Post by harpersealtako »

bobthepanda wrote: post #186
arsome wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem is not really necessarily that the car centric city exists, though it certainly has externalities related to health and the climate. The problem is that only the car centric city exists. Nice walkable places are in extremely short supply and fetch a premium, and so there exist people who buy into the detached house, car centric lifestyle because it is the only thing available at their price point. It is i…

This is the crux of the issue. I've said it before in HN, but urban density advocates need to focus more on why denser urban neighborhoods are good, rather than focusing on why car-centric suburbs are bad. New urbanists need the support of suburbanites whether they want to admit it or not, railing against people who like having space and privacy is less effective at winning allies than making a solid economic and social case for denser developments. Oftentimes urbanists actually explicitly say they want to "ban surburbs", which does nothing to help their cause or suggest that they are looking for a compromise that involves both dense developments and less dense developments.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#359

Post by Aloha »

ItsMonkk wrote: post #196
Aloha wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed this on the head. I like stroads, there is a place for them. I like streets, and I like roads and highways too, I drive everywhere because my workplace is 10 miles from my house. While a walkable neighborhood sounds great, I still gotta drive to work - and even with hub and spoke transit, it's a 15 min car ride or and hour and a half by transit. (I'm lucky, a transit line down a freeway could leave…

> I think we need dense place for those who like living there, and suburban ones for those who don't - plus stuff in between. We agree. And this is a key point made by Not Just Bikes / StrongTowns - when you have exclusively Stroad infrastructure and Single Family Homes, even those who prefer to drive and live in those homes are worse off. You need single family homes. You need bike lanes. You need multi-family homes…

Nothing is stopping anyone from building denser infrastructure, I'm in favor of lifting the often absurd parking requirements seen. But I don't wanna see a world where density is required, because I don't want to live in a dense area.

Re: How do you fix a stroad?

#360

Post by harpersealtako »

refurb wrote: post #176
adrianN wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like their cars because the city design makes all alternatives comically impractical.

Nope. I live in a country with high quality transit and the first thing people buy when they can afford it is a car. Why? Convenience, flexibility, ability to haul a family. Cars certainly aren’t a requirement if you have good walkability and/transit, but given the choice many people prefer cars.

I find this is true nearly anywhere you go in the world, even in countries with excellent public transit (e.g. Korea, Japan, Taiwan). The moment people have the money to afford a car, they buy one. The only places I've seen that this is not the case are isolated, hyper-dense city states (Hong Kong and Singapore).
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