7 ms·

I find the premise questionable that stroads are bad. Give a stroad good sidewalks, crosswalks with signs that light up when you hit a button, and a bike path a

• andbberger 5y ago
  it's not people are anti-car as much as they are pro-human. the majority of people (in the states) would not be car people if they had alternatives. stroads are hostile to anyone not in a car. making pedestrians hit a beg button to cross street is just reinforcing that they are trespassing on land that is not for them.
  • calt 5y ago
    > making pedestrians hit a beg button to cross street is just reinforcing that they are trespassing on land that is not for them. I love this quote.
  • jimmaswell 5y ago
    They have right of way regardless but the flashing sign increases safety. Are turn signals a "beg button"?
    • andbberger 5y ago
      I dare you to cross a stroad without waiting for the pedestrian phase. Turn signals are not beg buttons.
  • throw0101a 5y ago
    I once ran across the observation that the amount 'jay walking' that occurs on a street is an indication of how much that street is pedestrian-friendly. More criss-crossing means people feel safer just moseying over to the other side.
  • zionic 5y ago
    > making pedestrians hit a beg button to cross street is just reinforcing that they are trespassing on land that is not for them. But this is true. I see lot of people on this thread assuming everyone just loves living in a human ant colony, and that all we need to do is educate people and they’ll throw their cars, yard, and neighborhood away to live in a 600sqft shit shack 20 stories above “walkable” retail. I’ve done that before, and it sucks. Walking everywhere sucks. Riding bicycles on the same infrastructure as cars is both stupid and dangerous. People like having their own homes not connected to anything else with yards. People like going to restaurants and being able to park.
    • andbberger 5y ago
      no one is claiming education is needed, as much as changing the urban fabric to what it is in most of the developed world. nor one is saying suburbs should stop existing. some people want to live on a farm in the countryside, fine. having a big apartment and living in a walkable area are not mutually exclusive things. bike infra should indeed be separated from cars and pedestrians.
      • josephcsible 5y ago
        > nor one is saying suburbs should stop existing. Isn't that one of Strong Towns' major beliefs?
    • detaro 5y ago
      The amount of straw men you've been building in this thread is quite impressive. please try to do better.
      • zionic 5y ago
        No, you do better. They’re all over this thread, claiming that Americans simply “don’t know” about the glorious bicycle waiting to save them from cars. It’s pretty ridiculous, and honestly rather insulting.
        • 5y ago
• xvedejas 5y ago
  Pedestrians are the majority where I live; and even car drivers end up as pedestrians some of the time.
  • Rendello 5y ago
    In my ideal city the majority of people would consider themselves pedestrians, cyclists, and (optionally) drivers, depending on the needs and conditions of the given day. Edit: And public transit-takers, of course!
• mtoner23 5y ago
  putting in crosswalks on a road like that will slow down drivers and get people killed, it is an inherently unsafe place to be. the other reason that this is bad is this section of development is unprofitable for the city. The amount of resources it uses (road maintenance, electricity, sewage, emergency services) is far greater than the amount of taxes it brings in. This is why its mentioned at the end of the article that a place like this will inherently wither away and die.
• calt 5y ago
  > That or just let car people (majority) have these areas that are good for cars and The idea is that a well planned city/suburb will turn car people into people that also enjoy safely not using a car some of the time. > let the anti car people have their crowded little streets with no parking elsewhere. Bleh. Such an us vs them mentality. I'm suspicious of cars because I have literally gotten hit by them while cycling (edit: multiple times, thank you very much). I'm not "anti car." Try getting hit by 2 tons of metal and see how that makes you feel about safe infrastructure.
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    > Bleh. Such an us vs them mentality. Doesn't the "us vs. them" mentality come from the fact that most of Strong Towns' ideas will make life worse for everyone who needs to drive, without giving most of them an alternative to driving?
    • Rendello 5y ago
      > Strong Towns' ideas will make life worse for anyone who drives into the city, with basically no advantages for them, and without creating a viable alternative to driving for most of them? That's not necessarily a given: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
      • calt 5y ago
        TLDW: A city that is less reliant on cars actually reduces congestion and makes it more pleasant to drive in a city. Fewer cars on the road means less competition. Bike lanes have more capacity to move people. Well designed intersections and bike lanes mean that you aren't competing against cyclists and pedestrians for road space you're coexisting along just fine.
      • davidrhunt 5y ago
        I was just tracking down this exact link. Thanks for sharing.
    • 5y ago
• derefr 5y ago
  > areas that are good for cars You're talking about a road. Stroads are not good for cars. Because stroads have crosswalks, and people's driveways opening directly onto them, and many other things, traffic flow and "attentional efficiency" are both far worse than what you'd get from a real separated road with onramps/offramps. Roads are great. Streets are great. Good city planning involves plenty of both. Just like your body needs both arteries and capillaries. Stroads don't solve either problem as well as just having both does, and they introduce tons of problems besides.
  • jimmaswell 5y ago
    I use stroads all the time and I can't agree. They don't bother me at all. Easy to navigate and not too slow or fast.
    • derefr 5y ago
      I imagine you'd change your tune if you had to choose between driving on roads vs. stroads professionally, as a truck driver, cab driver, etc. Roads — separated thoroughfares exclusively for cars, engineered to remove anything that would require stopping — minimize travel time, gas costs, and accidents. Stroads do none of those things. There's a reason that every Uber driver who has the opportunity will take you onto the nearest real road (e.g. a highway) as soon as they can, and stay on it for as much of the trip as they can: given the same destination, driving on a road is both less work for them, while also having a higher profit margin! Roads are for professional drivers. Streets are for people. Stroads are, perhaps, optimized for Sunday drivers. But why should anyone optimize anything for Sunday drivers?
      • jimmaswell 5y ago
        Truckers can't be big fans of narrower streets either. It seems to me more like a stroad just takes a street and makes it more convenient to through traffic with a bit of compromise to ease of crossing but not even particularly much detriment to walking on a single side.
• throw0101a 5y ago
  Except streets and roads are designed to solve different problems: > Streets: The function of a street is to serve as a platform for building wealth. On a street, we're attempting to grow the complex ecosystem that produces community wealth. In these environments, people (outside of their automobiles) are the indicator species of success. Successful streets are environments where humans, and human interaction, flourish. > Roads: In contrast, the function of a road is to connect productive places. You can think of a road as a refinement of the railroad — a road on rails — where people board in one place, depart in another and there is a high speed connection between the two. > Stroads: Stroads are a mash-up of these two types of paths. We like to call them "the futon of transportation" because, just as a futon is neither a particularly good bed nor a particularly good couch, a stroad is neither a particularly good road or a particularly good street. * https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/10/30/the-stroad https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/10/30/the-stroad A high-speed, high-volume thoroughfare with minimal obstructions to flow will have its per-hour capacity decimated by having to stop every couple of hundred meters by traffic lights and crosswalks. On the pedestrian side, who wants to cross an area where cars travel 60 kph (or higher): what happens if they don't stop? This video from the Not Just Bikes channel shows the stark difference between a street and a road (using examples in the Netherlands) and stroads: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM If you make a place easier to get to primarily by car, then you need lots of parking—which makes walking a chore because of colossal amount of space needed for spaces. Do a satellite view of the mall closest mall to you: how much square footage is for retail and how much is for parking. Sometimes parking lots are 3x (or more) of the area of the actual store(s). If you make a place easier to get to primarily by foot (or pedalling), then there's a lot fewer parking spaces—because why 'waste' the space on that form of transportation. (Outside of delivery trucks/vans.)
  • jimmaswell 5y ago
    I've seen the video, it just didn't resonate much. I drive those areas often enough without issue. I've walked through them too. They feel like an acceptable compromise for the most part but they could do with protected bike lanes and flashing crossings like I mentioned.
• Rendello 5y ago
  My observations: I grew up in Northern Ontario, where the cities are basically long stroads. Inside of a car, they can be stressful to drive in, as they combine high-speed travel with frequent and awkward turns. God forbid you want to walk or bike next to one of them. The noise is extreme, and the infrastructure surrounding them is horrid. Whether in a car, on a bike, or on foot, they are ugly and soul-crushing. The patio bar next to a stroad isn't going to be people's first choice. I haven't been to the Netherlands myself, but it appears that after moving away from stroads and "car-centric" infrastructure, the driving is actually much faster and more pleasant [1]. It gives me hope at least! 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
• jhgb 5y ago
  > and a bike path Why do you want to kill so many cyclists?
  • jimmaswell 5y ago
    I said bike path, not bike lane. A small paved path on the other side of the crosswalk.
  • NumberWangMan 5y ago
    Though I suspect you're being tongue-in-cheek, I don't think this sort of question is conducive to productive discussion or debate. It follows the pattern: "I think your idea X will result in negative consequence Y. So now I accuse you of wanting Y". Once you know about it, you'll see it everywhere, and also notice how it tends to shut down any chance of finding common ground or changing someone's mind. A more charitable way is something like: "I think X will result in Y, which I doubt is something any of us want. Have you considered that potential consequence?"
• micromacrofoot 5y ago
  stroads are miserable to walk through… usually large distances across large parking lots, too windy in the cold, too hot in the sun, bleak and depressing to look at, have many cars traveling at higher speeds, noise, air pollution… they’re not just ill-equipped, but unpleasant to people in the nature of how they’re shaped
• bee_rider 5y ago
  Stroads are a word that strongtowns seems to have recently successfully popularized, so it is hard to find actual measurements about "stroads." However, I was able to find a little research indicating that narrower streets are correlated to fewer/less damaging traffic accidents. There's a conference paper "Narrower Lanes, Safer Streets," or have a look at these blogs that talk about it: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/05/27/compelling-evidence-that-wider-lanes-make-city-streets-more-dangerous/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/05/27/compelling-evidence-t... https://thecityfix.com/blog/bigger-isnt-always-better-narrow-traffic-lanes-make-cities-safer-subha-ranjan-banerjee-ben-welle/ https://thecityfix.com/blog/bigger-isnt-always-better-narrow... Honestly I'm a bit surprised how little this has been measured. I mean obviously setting up experiments would be difficult, but you'd think more natural experiments would occur as different places try to fit weird geometries...
• JetAlone 5y ago
  Anti-stroadism is a deluded locus of control for detached intellectuals that will lead us into the fresh horrors of a dark age yet unseen. Without the strong stroadlandians to remind us of the importance of danger and adversity, we would have small walking communities of sensitive, dependent pedestrians who gradually get cut off from one another as the roads fall into disrepair.
  • alanbernstein 5y ago
    The point is that we're already in a dark age, brought about by transforming the environment to work for cars instead of humans.
    • mperham 5y ago
      Wow, this is bleak but true.
    • JetAlone 5y ago
      Stroadlandia is a noble, and beautiful place. Her cars are majestic creatures, worthy of human service. Her department stores and parking lots overflow with the abundance of a multifaceted thoroughfare that defies the reason of mortal man.
    • seoulmetro 5y ago
      The idea that Earth being accessible to everyone at infinitely faster speeds is not a dark age. That is a golden age. It's sad that you've confused the two, but it's modern propaganda at work. The environment is damaged by humans. Not cars. If we banned cars, people would still ruin the environment, just in different ways. But that's cutting the nose off to spite the face. The truth is, cars are, for the most part, amazing pieces of technology that allows nearly every person freedom of movement. You aren't going to change that without creating something better. It seems like electric, self-driving cars are a possible dream, albeit even close to a pipe dream. Cars none-the-less though.
      • JetAlone 5y ago
• alanbernstein 5y ago
  In my city, stroads were created, presumably by agglomerative ad-hoc decision making as the population exploded for several decades straight. Now, in the majority of places, there is no width left in the right-of-way to add good sidewalks or bike paths. I don't know if the situation is similar elsewhere, but here it's clear to me that the concept of the stroad is useful, and that it's something to be avoided as much as possible in the future.