5 ms·

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. R

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 pedestrians and cyclists, etc. You can't combine these things - it's not a measurement divide but a categorical one. it is a made up word, but all words are made up.

bee_rider 5y ago
I get the idea, and I'm in favor of removing stroads. I think it would be more compelling if it was backed up by some data. Finding actual data on stroads is basically impossible because it is not a term-of-art as far as I can tell.
- takk309 5y ago
  Try the terms "road diet" and "traffic calming", they will yeild more results. While not exactly the same concept, they are terms that have been in use within the industry for much longer.
takk309 5y ago
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 everyone can think of a local road that is more convenient than another route therefore attracting high traffic volumes. These roads become problematic without improving the proper route. The other side of the coin is an arterial that is built but too many accesses are allowed to connect to it. In my home town this has happened when the city council caved to developers and allowed residential construction on a major arterial because nobody wanted to build commercial developments at the time. Jump ahead 10 years and there is now a strange neighborhood with driveways directly on the busiest street in town. Changing roads is very tricky due to the funding sources. Usually local roads are only eligible for local funding where as arterials are eligible for federal funding. There are exceptions and it is much more nuanced than can be explained in one paragraph.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > Generally there is a hierarchy of roads called functional class. It goes local street - collector - minor arterial - major arterial - freeway. This heirarchy seems to miss the importance distinction that Strong Towns makes between a "street" and a "road", in that "streets" are places where human life takes place, and "roads" are how vehicles move rapidly from place to place. It has only category with the word "street" literally present, and then moves immediately to other things whose relationship to the street/road distinction is unclear. This is a problem because streets include those that are purely residental as well as those with retail etc.
  - takk309 5y ago
    You are correct. The old way of thinking about roads/streets (synonyms in this case) is a place to move cars. The people centric view on transportation is new enough that there isn't much traction among the old guard at state DOTs. Changing something like functional class and what it means is very hard due to decades of history. As the saying goes, old dogs can't learn new tricks. This is especially true for government agencies. I have worked with cities that have a strong desire to make their transportation network people centric but the state won't help pay for it because the concepts don't move enough cars and to them, that is all that matters.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Exactly. Ideally, only the street should have real street functionality (houses and shops directly accessible from the street). Maybe the collector too; it's meant to have many streets connecting to it, so access to car parks for shops makes a lot of sense there too. But anything arterial should just be about getting people from one end to the other as smoothly as possible. There's one more category that's often ignored in this list: the rural road. There, the functions can mix without any problems, but only because of its very low density and low use; very little traffic means you can still cross the road easily, and have time to turn into drive ways and things like that without hindering anyone.
- Aloha 5y ago
  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 to me.

bee_rider 5y ago

I get the idea, and I'm in favor of removing stroads. I think it would be more compelling if it was backed up by some data. Finding actual data on stroads is basically impossible because it is not a term-of-art as far as I can tell.

takk309 5y ago
Try the terms "road diet" and "traffic calming", they will yeild more results. While not exactly the same concept, they are terms that have been in use within the industry for much longer.

takk309 5y ago

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 everyone can think of a local road that is more convenient than another route therefore attracting high traffic volumes. These roads become problematic without improving the proper route. The other side of the coin is an arterial that is built but too many accesses are allowed to connect to it. In my home town this has happened when the city council caved to developers and allowed residential construction on a major arterial because nobody wanted to build commercial developments at the time. Jump ahead 10 years and there is now a strange neighborhood with driveways directly on the busiest street in town. Changing roads is very tricky due to the funding sources. Usually local roads are only eligible for local funding where as arterials are eligible for federal funding. There are exceptions and it is much more nuanced than can be explained in one paragraph.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> Generally there is a hierarchy of roads called functional class. It goes local street - collector - minor arterial - major arterial - freeway. This heirarchy seems to miss the importance distinction that Strong Towns makes between a "street" and a "road", in that "streets" are places where human life takes place, and "roads" are how vehicles move rapidly from place to place. It has only category with the word "street" literally present, and then moves immediately to other things whose relationship to the street/road distinction is unclear. This is a problem because streets include those that are purely residental as well as those with retail etc.
- takk309 5y ago
  You are correct. The old way of thinking about roads/streets (synonyms in this case) is a place to move cars. The people centric view on transportation is new enough that there isn't much traction among the old guard at state DOTs. Changing something like functional class and what it means is very hard due to decades of history. As the saying goes, old dogs can't learn new tricks. This is especially true for government agencies. I have worked with cities that have a strong desire to make their transportation network people centric but the state won't help pay for it because the concepts don't move enough cars and to them, that is all that matters.
- mcv 5y ago
  Exactly. Ideally, only the street should have real street functionality (houses and shops directly accessible from the street). Maybe the collector too; it's meant to have many streets connecting to it, so access to car parks for shops makes a lot of sense there too. But anything arterial should just be about getting people from one end to the other as smoothly as possible. There's one more category that's often ignored in this list: the rural road. There, the functions can mix without any problems, but only because of its very low density and low use; very little traffic means you can still cross the road easily, and have time to turn into drive ways and things like that without hindering anyone.
Aloha 5y ago
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 to me.