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I think there's a middle ground. If you look examples of walkable suburbs (Houten from one of the other replies, the north of Canberra in Australia) they don't
by strken 4y ago
I think there's a middle ground. If you look examples of walkable suburbs (Houten from one of the other replies, the north of Canberra in Australia) they don't just shove cul-de-sacs everywhere with no thought. Canberra in particular uses looping streets rather than dead ends, runs footpaths between houses at the midpoint of many loops so pedestrians and cyclists can move like they're in a grid, and doesn't have multiple levels of branching dead-end streets like your example.
You can still end up with a long drive between adjacent blocks, but the walk or ride should be much shorter.
- davidw 4y agoWith a good grid, you could always close off some of the side streets to cars and let bikes and pedestrians through. With the big up front design... you better hope you got it right the first time because you are going to have more trouble changing it later. I think that's what I like about a grid. It doesn't have to be 100% right. You can change and shape and adapt it as needs be.
- strken 4y agoWith a big up-front layout you can still leave big enough gaps to put a road in and create a grid if you need, too: it goes both ways. Keep government ownership of pedestrian and bike paths with some nice trees on either side, and if you really need to you can put a road there later.
- davidw 4y agoThat's still a grid you're describing, in terms of the right-of-ways that have been reserved for the public. Just without roads built out on all of them. And yeah, that makes sense in some places.