4 ms·
You're comparing streets with roads, here. Fundamentally I agree with you, big roads divide communities and make cities unwalkable. But they are necessary. A s
by freehunter 8y ago
You're comparing streets with roads, here. Fundamentally I agree with you, big roads divide communities and make cities unwalkable. But they are necessary.
A street is made for transporting humans first and foremost. It has sidewalks, driveways to houses are accessed directly from the street, and pedestrians can cross with relative ease, to the point that crosswalks are basically unnecessary.
A road is made for transporting cars first and foremost. There shouldn't be many residential driveways directly leading into a road, there may be sidewalks but they're not going to get used often, and you should rarely see pedestrians trying to cross. Crosswalks are very necessary on roads.
There's no getting around the fact that we need roads. Cars and trucks need ways to move long distanced quickly. The problem becomes when city designers try to mix streets and roads (to make a stroad), leading to massive arteries running through the heart of a residential neighborhood. Proper city design puts roads outside of pedestrian-heavy neighborhoods and fills them with easily and safely walkable streets instead.
There's nothing wrong with an 8 lane road, as long as that road isn't supposed to be used as a street as well.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-and-why-does-it-matter https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-...
- CalRobert 8y agowe agree to an extent, but we've shoved roads and motorways where we should have streets. Santa Monica ridiculously slapped a 25mph sign and unguarded crosswalk on a Wilshire, a disaster of a road at the best of times, and of course people are killed on it now and then. How many nearby will die young from cancer,lung disease, etc - who knows? Interestingly autism rates appear to be higher near freeways (like the ones we put in the middle of cities), yet the anti-freeways-in-urban-cores crowd somehow lacks mindshare compared to antivaxxers.
- freehunter 8y agoIf you haven't been familiar with the organization Strong Towns before, you should really look into it. They've got tons of articles that are right up your alley on the dangers of just putting a 25mph speed limit on a road and calling it a "street". This one is my favorite: Just Another Pedestrian Killed https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-pedestrian-killed https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-p...
- CalRobert 8y agoThanks - I'm familiar with them. This is an issue I care deeply about, and one of the key reasons I emigrated.