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The Stroad
- 15457345234 3y agoThey're not wrong about these things, they're super hazardous. Through-drivers become frustrated, drivers looking for the store they want aren't paying attention to the road, people window-shop while driving, peds are wandering everywhere, etc. Highly problematic.
- karmakaze 3y agoThis is trying to solve the wrong problem. We should be using smaller vehicles, such as electric scooters or automated microbuses in dedicated lanes, etc. We should rethink why people need to travel great distances on a daily basis. Work-from-home was a major one that got the shake-up and now it's not a given that we must commute up to an hour or more each way each day. I've always owned/driven a car since graduation, up until a few years ago. Then I decided to park the vehicle and walk/transit/uber for the incidental health benefits. I'm surprised I've not had much issue with this, though if I were to add it up it's probably costing me more time and money than driving myself. I could get a small e-vehicle or live somewhere more livable to improve that if it mattered more.
- 15457345234 3y ago> This is trying to solve the wrong problem. That's kinda what I concluded, these guys seem to have a relatively good point but there's no practical way to action it; in the US about half the country has already been laid down according to this template. Trying to disrupt that is just disrupting the economy and will do an infinite more amount of damage to livelihoods in the short term than good in the long term. I'm reluctant to characterise anything as a 'wrecker' movement but... I get a bit of that vibe from them. A bit like those environmentalists that use environmentalism to disguise their misanthropic tendencies. I really don't know why I think that about this movement, though. It's weird. Just rubs me the wrong way.
- apsurd 3y agobut it's easy to point out what's wrong, why this initiative is misguided. i'm a misanthrope myself. ironic that you're pointing out what's wrong with the misanthropic take. Car dependent cities are a terrible health hazard! I get it, different strokes for different folks, but iono, have car dependent owners really experienced anything else? You warn of economic damage as if that's the only Good there is. We can't A/B tests our lives, so we're gonna bias the life we know. So it's self perpetuating. The take isn't throw up your hands because economic damage, that can't be it? Eh that's why im a misanthrope.
- cyberax 3y ago[flagged]
- apsurd 3y agoyou mentioned koolaid somewhere in your replies. sounds like you're drinking good ol U.S. of A koolaid. good on you! the car the picket fence the lawn and the McMansion. it's just that it doesn't really work that way for most people. and "most people" ends up being apparently very tricky in US history let's just say.
- workingdog 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Sankozi 3y agoWhy would it do any damage? Stroad usually can easily be converted into road, and with some political will and investments into a street. In both cases economy will improve - either by making roads safer and faster, or by bringing jobs to the newly created streets. That is the whole point of being against stroads - they are rotten compromise between roads and streets.
- cyberax 3y ago> We should be using smaller vehicles, such as electric scooters or automated microbuses in dedicated lanes, etc. No. The current model is pretty close to the perfect one. Surface roads efficiently and _flexibly_ move people. There is NOTHING else that comes even close to them. We just need to push self-driving cars, and then start working on the REAL problem: dense cities. They should be deconstructed and un-densified, except for selected historically-significant areas.
- apsurd 3y agoin which utopian US city are you loving life? gotta say i never met any human describe US car infrastructure as "perfect" no matter where on the car lover spectrum they fall. disclaimer: i'm a bike bro as you call it
- cyberax 3y ago> in which utopian US city are you loving life? I loved Houston, TX. Its road system and zoning are freakishly well-designed, and it allows people to have commutes that are far more comfortable (and shorter!) than in dense cities. In fact, Houston ("Greater Houston Area") had shorter commute time than ANY European city of a comparable size! I moved out of there because I couldn't tolerate the climate. My second-favorite city is Salt Lake City. > disclaimer: i'm a bike bro as you call it Well, duh.
- apsurd 3y agothanks for the reply. never been to houston. been to salt lake city, it's too spread out for me but surprisingly it feels walkable, even in 100°+ heat. probably because it's super flat. I enjoyed the people there. do you ever wonder why dense cities are dense though? we're all fooled? slaves? red pilled or whatever color the saying is
- cyberax 3y ago> do you ever wonder why dense cities are dense though? we're all fooled? slaves? red pilled or whatever color the saying is There are no conspiracies, just pure market forces. Dense cities are more efficient for _companies_ because they allow access to larger talent pools. Basically, if you are Google, it might make sense to open an office near Amazon's campus, and hire away some of Amazon's engineers. This has an externality: more people will have to commute into that small area, resulting in longer commute time. Alternatively, they can move to live closer to that workplace, downsizing their living space and/or increasing the real estate price (more people competing for an inherently limited resource). We also know the market way to fix that: price the externalities via taxes or cap-and-trades. In this case, the density needs to be treated in this way.
- emodendroket 3y agoI get the idea but I don't feel like "stroad" is really compelling jargon. These guys need a Frank Luntz-like figure to come up with a better name.
- karmakaze 3y agoSimilarly the 'strongtowns' naming doesn't elicit anything positive/meaningful to me. And if a stroad is the flavor of them, then I'm not interested.
- jimbob45 3y agoTheir subreddit activity agrees with you. Posts get little to no traction on a regular basis. That said, their model of change is murky. On one hand, they seem to want to be governmental consultants and on the other hand, they want to educate the citizenry on how to advocate for more robust city design. The middle road they’ve taken between those two doesn’t really fit anyone.
- martijnvds 3y agoSo it's more like a .. middle stroad?
- vortegne 3y agoPerhaps if branding and terminology nitpicks are scaring you away, then maybe you never cared about the issue in the first place. Is suboptimal branding really something that should keep you from being engaged with important things? What does it say about us that this is normal behavior now?
- karmakaze 3y agoI'm interested in the problems--what turned me off was the stroads proposal. The bad naming of strongtowns is just a passing comment on the jargon.
- emodendroket 3y ago
- kraig911 3y agoInteresting article but not realistic IMO. It's just that roads/streets capital investment is incredibly complicated and so much thought/systems/law has built up around their concept and creation. The entirety of the problem is literally just cars. Cars are the problem. We've created a society that needs them but we're butting up against our need to move fast but we forget we're human and stupid. I think either a new novel way to travel or self driving cars that actually work are the only answers that can solve this.
- cyberax 3y ago[flagged]
- Lvl999Noob 3y agoIsn't that what people mean when they say that cars are the problem? With a personal vehicle, all you need is a road and you can start from any point on the road and stop at any point. That means people and shops can be as spread out as they want. This leads to sprawl which perpetuates the problem as cars (or other motor vehicles) become necessary for any meaningful distance. Edit: when people advocate to remove cars, I take it as removing cars as a viable option of transport and then designing the roads, public transport, facility placement, etc to make that a reality.
- cyberax 3y agoWhat's wrong with sprawl? It allows people to live in spacious houses. The overwhelming majority of people want that (more than 80%). Take a look at your assumptions. There are some problems with cars: gasoline use and general unsafety due to human drivers. EVs are solving the first one, and self-driving will solve the second one.
- stanleykm 3y agoCant wait to sit in traffic for 3 hours every day as i commute 7 miles from megaburb 8 to megaburb 6
- cyberax 3y agoCan we please stop this propaganda? "Stroads" are roads for all users, not just bike bros. And roads are absolutely beautiful, they allow people to move. As a result, well-designed car-oriented American cities are _far_ more efficient than nicely-looking but horrible-to-live European cities. If you want to use pejorative names, then I propose: "slumhive" ("slum beehive") for any high-rise building and "broads" ("bike bro roads") for bicycle lanes.
- alkonaut 3y agoStroads are bad for cars too (not just pedestrians and bicyclists). That's the argument against stroads. Roads are good and streets are good but stroads is the worse of both with the benefits of none.
- cyberax 3y agoNo. Roads with turn lanes are _flexible_, they allow fast arterial flow, with easy turns. This allows far more variation in design than just high-speed roads and slow local roads. Moreover, removing "stroads" does NOT reduce fatalities! Boston's accident rate went up from 16 vehicular deaths in 2016 (before they drank the KoolAid) to 26 this year. The attacks on surface roads by groups with an agenda (push people into dense cities) is predictable. They want traffic to become untenable, so they just lie and insinuate.
- Boltgolt 3y agoInteresting, so you don't think that separating different kinds of traffic (through traffic and local traffic) would inheritly also be better for car drivers?
- cyberax 3y agoThe whole thing with "stroads" is that they allow to seamlessly transition between these modes. You can't have the left turns on a regular road, so you either need multi-level interchanges (that take too much space), or you need to force drivers to make right turns and circle around. The latter _can_ be a solution for some roads, but it necessarily lengthens the trip and significantly increases its time because you have to make 3 right turns instead of one left turn.
- dmwilcox 3y agoRoads are all fine, I just want them to be gravel or dirt ;). While we're dreaming that is. I grew up in rural California and dirt roads were quite common not far out of town, it's a different way of driving and one that'll make you wonder why you aren't using a mountain bike, if you aren't hauling a bunch of kids or gear. This all said I am beyond biased, I escaped the bay area to London at least partially because I don't want driving to be a part of my daily life. But I understand opinions vary and people back home love their cars and TV ;)
- o0banky0o 3y agoCities are where cars are a problem. Out in the country they are fundamental tools, our modern horse.
- ForestCritter 3y agoTown centers with a concentration of pedestrians , bikes and vehicles are going to have a higher rate of accidents no matter what you do. Separating the through traffic from the town centers kills the town centers...route 66 anybody? The focus should be on being more concientious drivers and having respect for the place you are driving in. Lack of respect isn't going to be fixed by dividing up and killing the heart of town centers.
- scoofy 3y ago> Separating the through traffic from the town centers kills the town centers...route 66 anybody? This has been shown repeatedly to be false, but folks who blindly believe it.
- ozymandium 3y agocan you provide sources?
- altgoogler 3y agohttps://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safety-fatalities-governors-association https://www.vox.com/23784549/pedestrian-deaths-traffic-safet...
- stephen_g 3y agoWow, I didn’t realise this, I was travelling through a bunch of highly walkable cities (guess where) over the last couple of weeks, I guess I didn’t realise they were dead because I couldn’t see past all the people, shops and businesses, and apartments in the way…
- karmakaze 3y agoThis is the closest thing to 'flat earth' that I've seen on HN--surprised by the strong and unsubstantiated viewpoints. At least I now have a mnemonic for remembering the "strongtowns" movement name. nvm, overthinking it: rhymes with wrongtowns.