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The Stroad

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Stroad

#91

Post by throwaway894345 »

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…

> I love how I can just jump on a bike here and be at a large supermarket in 5 minutes

If you live in a large US city, this can still be very manageable. There are two large grocery stores and a small one as well as a Target and a metro line within a 5 minute walk of my house. Apart from the metro line, we didn't really prioritize the grocery stores, etc when looking for a house. That said, there are many downsides to living in big US cities as well.

Re: The Stroad

#92

Post by cozzyd »

treis wrote: post #86
woah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. People want to live in walkable cities. Property prices prove this.

But they choose not to. US population is roughly 1/2 suburban, 1/4 rural, and 1/4 urban. Which backs up my point.

There are entire metro areas where there are effectively zero walkable areas. People there don't have much of a choice at all!

Re: The Stroad

#93

Post by wilkommen »

treis wrote: post #87
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a very simple solution then. build more walkable places.

Walkable places are inherently more expensive because they lack economy of scale. It's why Dunkin Donuts can sell a dozen for $10 but it costs ~$20 for half a dozen at my local walkable place. Granted, there is a quality of ingredients difference but not 4x the cost.

No, it's the suburbs that lack economy of scale. The walkable areas contribute far more per acre in taxes than the suburbs. They also require fewer resources to maintain per person because they're physically smaller. The suburbs have such a paucity of "economies of scale" that municipalities around the country have gone into debt to support them.

The reason donuts cost more at your local walkable place is because real estate prices are higher in walkable places, because walkable places are so in-demand that as a nation we've bid the prices of those places to the moon. So we ought to change our zoning rules so that the market can build more of them. That's the whole point of Strong Towns idea.

Re: The Stroad

#94

Post by chestervonwinch »

onionisafruit wrote: post #34
chestervonwinch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Austin Texas, we have lovely signs to remind you of your imminent crash! http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JP...

I don’t remember ever seeing that sign. Where is it posted?

I've seen them while cruising S Pleasant Valley, but there are a number of road sections where they're posted: http://austintexas.gov/page/high-injury-roadways

Re: The Stroad

#95

Post by hannasanarion »

treis wrote: post #86
woah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. People want to live in walkable cities. Property prices prove this.

But they choose not to. US population is roughly 1/2 suburban, 1/4 rural, and 1/4 urban. Which backs up my point.

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 everywhere whether they want to or not.

Re: The Stroad

#96

Post by hannasanarion »

josephcsible wrote: post #32
throw0101a wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's saying that currently only desktop computers are being built, and they're being shoehorned into both supercomputer applications (modelling weather) and embedded areas (controlling a lightbulb via a Dell OptiPlex). Having two classes of devices would be an improvement of the current situation.

But it's not the case that only stroads are being built. There's plenty of things that are unambiguously streets and plenty of things that are unambiguously roads. If the argument were "not everything should be a stroad", I'd agree, but they're saying they want to eradicate all stroads.

Because there are very few situations where a stroad is actually appropriate.

If your goal is to move people, a limited access high speed road is the right way to do it.

If your goal is to support commerce, a low speed, mixed traffic street that can support a lot of homes an businesses in a small area is the right way to do it.

The high speed and land use of stroads makes them inefficient and dangerous for commerce, and the fact that there's so much on-and-off traffic makes them slow and dangerous for transit. They are the worst of both worlds.

Re: The Stroad

#97

Post by Panzer04 »

refurb wrote: post #76
quadrangle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly a case of people not knowing what they really want. Demand-driven economy has a place, but it's definitely not something to accept simplistically. Famous examples: people wanted better horse-carriages and didn't anticipate cars. People wanted better keyboards on their blackberry-style phones, not an iPhone. Etc etc. Nobody who experiences life in the Netherlands where biking and walking is actually safe e…

I'm not convinced. It's not like your "better horse-carriage" example because the option already exists and people reject it. My colleagues in the Bay Area all lived in SF, then quickly moved to the subrurbs when they got older. Sure, there is no pedestrian/biking utopia in the US, but there are places where you can pretty much get by without a car. And many people don't choose to live there. I also spent some time i…

I suspect this will also suffer from the “grass is greener” problem. Those who live in cities will romanticise suburban living, and vice versa in suburbs.

Culture also matters; in the west the city is often seen as a place for single professionals, rather than somewhere to build your life long term. This will affect perceptions, for good or ill.

Also, although you can get by without a car in many locations, I think there’s probably a relatively stark difference in how livable that is depending on how it’s implemented. If your city is filled with two lane roads through the core that’s clearly much worse than the Netherlands equivalent.

Re: The Stroad

#98

Post by adrianN »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #80
_robbywashere wrote: post #21

I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.

> There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry. I have seen more comments and people talking about this toxic car culture than seen it in real life. Not everyone is young, healthy and rich enough to bike. There is a historic racial divide. White folks live in more bike friendly places. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-c…

Not everyone is young enough (or old enough!) or healthy enough or rich enough to drive a car either. That's exactly the point of people advocating for less car-centric infrastructure. Walkable neighborhoods and public transit are much more inclusive.

Re: The Stroad

#99

Post by chabons »

josephcsible wrote: post #32
throw0101a wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's saying that currently only desktop computers are being built, and they're being shoehorned into both supercomputer applications (modelling weather) and embedded areas (controlling a lightbulb via a Dell OptiPlex). Having two classes of devices would be an improvement of the current situation.

But it's not the case that only stroads are being built. There's plenty of things that are unambiguously streets and plenty of things that are unambiguously roads. If the argument were "not everything should be a stroad", I'd agree, but they're saying they want to eradicate all stroads.

You're correct, they are advocating that stroads be removed. The difference is that in your comparison to computers you assume that roads, like computers, have a quasi-linear trade-off between performance and power (ie: alpha x performance - beta x power = 0, obviously a simplification, but I hope it gets my point across) and thus a middle-ground between the extremes represents a good compromise for a variety of applications.

Strong Towns appears to be arguing that the trade-off between movement (roads) and value (streets) is highly non-linear, and that the middle-ground's combined performance is so much worse than either a street or road that it's not worth building. See the comment below about counter-tops vs. stoves for an example of an extreme binary case.

Re: The Stroad

#100

Post by irdc »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #80
_robbywashere wrote: post #21

I couldn’t agree more with the article. Unfortunately as for America I think people wouldn’t be very happy with turning their stroads into streets. There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry.

> There is a very toxic self centered car culture here; any impediment to it real or imaginary will make people very angry. I have seen more comments and people talking about this toxic car culture than seen it in real life. Not everyone is young, healthy and rich enough to bike. There is a historic racial divide. White folks live in more bike friendly places. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-c…

As a Dutch person: everybody bikes here. Young people, old people (sometimes with electrical assist bikes), women, men, people with and without an immigration background.

It's the money sink that is a car that's the real privilege.

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