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I have a house in Sunnyvale, California a few blocks from El Camino Real. It's the ultimate stroad, hundreds of miles long and lined with thriving businesses an

by w0mbat 5y ago

I have a house in Sunnyvale, California a few blocks from El Camino Real. It's the ultimate stroad, hundreds of miles long and lined with thriving businesses and I love it. It's getting really quite clean and quiet now a ridiculous proportion of traffic around here is Teslas.

fingerlocks 5y ago
I used to travel regularly to my company’s satellite office in Sunnyvale. My hotel was less than a mile away, so I walked the 20 minutes instead of opting for a rental car. Because that’s what I do in Seattle. I’m certain that I was the only pedestrian around for miles.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
Take it from someone who grew up in Santa Clara: El Camino Real fucking sucks. Now, many businesses along El Camino Real are great, don't get me wrong. But the road itself is miserable. When we lived in Sunnyvale there was a bigass Korean market literally across the street from us; we'd only drive there, despite it being, again, directly across the street, because that's how painful and dangerous-feeling it was to cross by foot. This is not a problem we ever had while living in Munich.
- mcv 5y ago
  > we'd only drive there, despite it being, again, directly across the street That is just bizarre. 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. It's much more efficient if through traffic is separated from local traffic, if you can walk to the store, if stores are close to each other with one central parking space from which you can easily reach them all, and if people only use cars for trips that intrinsically require a car.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >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 inefficiency and resultant drag on prosperity balanced out by making the market more efficient to access for people up and down the road? If he had to cross the tracks to get to the market you could basically come up with the same list of gripes. Naive analysis like that is not useful.
    - mcv 5y ago
      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 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. 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. Turns out the car isn't actually that important. You can save a lot of wasted space and money by making shops more accessible to other forms of traffic.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        > 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.
- w0mbat 5y ago
  I cross El Camino Real on foot all the time. Yes my nearest section has has 3 lanes in each direction, but it has marked pedestrian crossings with traffic lights and drivers obey the lights. However, I admit, I frequently drive to things in my neighborhood because things are far apart and when you chain a few local errands together it is much faster to drive. Every business has parking nearby so driving is easy.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Oh god I lived a block from El Camino Real in Santa Clara and I hated it. I really felt like I was surrounded on all sides by concrete (I would say this to people at the time). I grew up in a forest and being so close to so many cars was not for me. Different strokes for different folks though I’m glad you enjoy it! But your experience is so different from mine I thought I would share.

by w0mbat 5y ago

fingerlocks 5y ago

I used to travel regularly to my company’s satellite office in Sunnyvale. My hotel was less than a mile away, so I walked the 20 minutes instead of opting for a rental car. Because that’s what I do in Seattle. I’m certain that I was the only pedestrian around for miles.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

Take it from someone who grew up in Santa Clara: El Camino Real fucking sucks. Now, many businesses along El Camino Real are great, don't get me wrong. But the road itself is miserable. When we lived in Sunnyvale there was a bigass Korean market literally across the street from us; we'd only drive there, despite it being, again, directly across the street, because that's how painful and dangerous-feeling it was to cross by foot. This is not a problem we ever had while living in Munich.

mcv 5y ago
> we'd only drive there, despite it being, again, directly across the street That is just bizarre. 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. It's much more efficient if through traffic is separated from local traffic, if you can walk to the store, if stores are close to each other with one central parking space from which you can easily reach them all, and if people only use cars for trips that intrinsically require a car.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >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 inefficiency and resultant drag on prosperity balanced out by making the market more efficient to access for people up and down the road? If he had to cross the tracks to get to the market you could basically come up with the same list of gripes. Naive analysis like that is not useful.
  - mcv 5y ago
    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 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. 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. Turns out the car isn't actually that important. You can save a lot of wasted space and money by making shops more accessible to other forms of traffic.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      > 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.
w0mbat 5y ago
I cross El Camino Real on foot all the time. Yes my nearest section has has 3 lanes in each direction, but it has marked pedestrian crossings with traffic lights and drivers obey the lights. However, I admit, I frequently drive to things in my neighborhood because things are far apart and when you chain a few local errands together it is much faster to drive. Every business has parking nearby so driving is easy.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Oh god I lived a block from El Camino Real in Santa Clara and I hated it. I really felt like I was surrounded on all sides by concrete (I would say this to people at the time). I grew up in a forest and being so close to so many cars was not for me. Different strokes for different folks though I’m glad you enjoy it! But your experience is so different from mine I thought I would share.