The STROAD
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 бер 2013
- When you combine a street and a road, you get a STROAD, one of the most dangerous and unproductive human environments. To get more for our transportation dollar, America needs an active policy of converting STROADs to productive streets or high capacity roadways. www.strongtowns.org/journal/20...
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](/img/tr.png)
![The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [ST06]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bglWCuCMSWc/mqdefault.jpg)
Streets are places of businesses, activities, gathering, socializing and that's how communities grow and thrive and create economic value.
Why does it seem like all of the biggest mistakes, whether obvious or hidden, have been as a result of short-term thinking?
or long-term thinking with malicious intent
It's because long term thinking is actually much more difficult than you think
It's much harder to pitch a long-term solution when stakeholders are rallying for short-term fixes
@@Randomdive stakeholders
There's that word
Stroad. Suburban hellhole. Often have no sidewalks but instead have a gully on both sides. Pure hell. Hardly any local businesses. Just money pit franchises. The worst.
When you combine a chicken and a road you get a Choad haha. Okay seriously, we just need to copy Europe they have all the good ideas when it comes to transportation because THEY HAVE BEEN AROUND MUCH LONGER and build cities for walkers not vehicles and then went underground.
so... how much are you willing to use public transport? how much you use it now?
@@jebise1126 I use it a lot. Public transport is great (though perhaps not in the US). And by the way: yes, I do own a car.
@@repelsteeltje90 are you from US? i mean they say those wide streets are their problem anyway
@@jebise1126 I use it sometimes instead of cycling when it rains. (Netherlands)
more importantly Europeans had this need to save space since forever - not to protect the environment or such, but just to have enough space for living. By North American standards all of the Netherlands, Belgium, Western Germany (NRW) and France down to Paris are just one gigantic urban area. If you tell somebody from Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels or Cologne about surface parking in the city center, they'd call you nuts for wasting the space. They'd instead build 3 levels parking garage with another 5 levels of residential on top.
And people from East Asia would probably call Europeans nuts for keeping all the unused churches around, wasting so much space…
Did electrical work for some years. Just know that every single 4 way intersection with traffic lights (like the ones pictures in the Stroad diagram) cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-250k in equipment and labor. One intersection. Multiply that every time you have to stop at a light driving up that stroad and it starts to seem absolutely ridiculous.
The entire state of florida is essentially a network of stroads.
As a long-time Floridian, I can confirm. Sadly the downtown cities and towns are as "street" as they're going to get. Even the beaches with a lot of summer tourism are stroad-ridden.
How can combining 2 words to make one describing the quagmire of American suburban design be so simple yet so elegant?
i was thinking of the best way to reappropriate stroads and redesign a town.. so far I’m thinking you can add multi-use zoning in the middle of the stroad with residential on top of the 1st floor business, eliminate most roads except where it’s absolutely necessary, build highrise parking at focused points which would be the only places for cars to park, and make wide walking lanes with biking lanes being mandatory to be next to walking lanes, separated by trees and bushes.
Thank you for this video. Well thought-out and well presented concepts. Good visual examples.
The stroad in this example looks wide enough to have 2 lanes in every direction, plus a local lane for access to businesses and turns. The last thing you need to do is simply rise or lower one of the directions so they can cross without stopping.
Ah, Phoenix. Never change
Wrosgar Well stroads were created to go along side a trend in development called suburbanization. Suburbanization has been proven to be a mistake (albeit a popular one), as has the stroad. What can you say, we as a society make mistakes but we usually learn from them.
Would a typical American country road count as a stroad? Houses are often set at the end of long drive ways directly onto a two lane road.
Country roads a a bit different, they're not trying to pack in businesses like a street. They're more like roads with the occasional driveway.
Those drive ways don't have an amount of traffic that makes any noticeable dent on average daily traffic speeds and there are no expensive sidewalks with street lights or traffic signals. So the design is optimized for throughput and building expenses are also limited to those that benefit automobiles. I'd put it solidly in the road category.
expensive sidewalks?
Is there a video that shows a stroad turning into a road?
I would say that that turning a stroad into a road would be harder than a stroad into a street. Since most stroads occur in urban areas. Where traffic is too much to have it be a street, but not enough traffic to have a road.
@@commentor3485 I've thought of much the same honestly.
I think one of the most ambitious but possibly beneficial ways of conversion from stroad to road is to have a dual system (seen in NL, naturally) where the innermost middle lanes are road speeds, and a median separates into a one-way street on either side. It makes it safer for local travel but crossing can still be an issue.
Ultimately, though, the best option is probably to destroy current development and/or properly redesign it for newly built streets that safely extend out of the road in exit lanes like a highway.
@@punishedkid Hmm. Interesting idea.
@@NoirMorter Another thing to consider is that most development on suburban stroads is far from the road (but not all and not always), so by cutting into parking lot/empty space you would have enough space to add plenty of two-way streets parallel to the road. In fact, a stroad near to me basically has done this concept, but it's just for access around a parking lot.
"Parking lots don't employ anyone." So true. Except when they are initially installed. And they often need to be monitored for safety.
I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that lots are “often” monitored for safety. Many lots have no security cameras, certainly not far away from the store. Some even have fake or unmaintained cameras that are never turned on. For the lots that do have security cameras recording footage, not many of them are watched in live time. Instead, the footage is reviewed in the case of an incident of crime and theft. Parking lot monitoring is not a common career field.
Kalmazoo's downtown Michigan Avenue and East Michigan Avenues are STROADS! What are we going to do about that?
I cant believe it! The German road system is so much more effective.
So underrated this video!! 😳
such as... making more accessible for pedestrians without taking away from vehicle traffic based on early planning. One example of this is defining areas for the pedestrians to walk easily and allowing for over passes or defining areas where pedestrians are allowed to cross the road. At these defining areas they need to be some what spread out and focus on effective traffic management giving focus to drivers and utilizing pressure pads more than timers for lights. Minimize turning / thru traffic
Pedestrian overpasses aren't ideal
@@VoidCael Especially when they break.
3:15 yay, that's my country
If you guys weren’t trying to keep
Things PG, you could call it the choad of transportation options
this needs likes
I've only become truly aware of how economically segregating the US's civic roadway design outside of inner cities is after not being able to afford a car. It's every bit as much a form of hostile engineering/architecture as benches with hand rails to keep people from sleeping on them are What was at most a ten minute ride becomes an investment of at least 2 hours of round-trip cycling, either sweating profusely or freezing the entire time, done multiple times a week as I can't buy more than I can hold in my bike basket/backpack.
OMG this makes me thankful Not Just Bikes exists. This information is incredibly important but... did you record the voice over on a cellphone?
Well, this was made way back in 2013...
My favorite is when all the businesses along a stroad are car dealerships. Just acres of uselessness.
Separate the STROAD into protected Micro-Mobility Device (MMD) lanes or STREET component, and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lanes or ROAD component, separated by a raised arbor median that serves as a bus stop & pedestrian island. In China, they also have overhead pedestrian walkways.
🚲 🛵 🌳 🚍 🚘 🚘 🚍 🌳 🛵 🚲
MMD, you mean a bike lane?
Stroads suck...
but don't hate on futons!
Ah, the bleak suburban landscape... Mmm, smell the asphalt
i am happy that there are no stroads in germany. just looks terrible.
soviet union must have this
Stroads are the natural outgrowth of businesses trying to attract customers in vehicles, not pedestrians. When vehicles are restricted to bypasses, businesses die, towns fail. Simple economics.
Perhaps a staged approach would be better, one designed to take advantage of the different levels of town development, with a means of changing the type access based on the population level and business success. When towns are small, they NEED that vehicular traffic. But as they become more self-sustaining, a bypass can be instituted.
That is how it works in cities in Europe - when a city and/or the traffic on the main street get to big, a bypass is built
There is third option. You can mix road and street. You build in the middle what is called distributor road and 2 access roads on each side of the road to provide direct access to properties. Access roads are low-speed streets, distributor roads are desgined for higher speed and higher capacity. Distributor and access roads are linked via intersections that more sparse than what you have on stroad. Like ever 1 km or so to improve traffic flow. That's how the Netherlands has been their own stroads since the 1990s. The distributor roads doesn't need to have access roads on each side, but they often do. Also some stroads where completely redesigned as access roads (streets) only or even completely closed to vehicular traffic.
@@cutediz That's why many roads have two lanes on each side, an attempt to duplicate this idea. But this isn't the Netherlands; what works there will not work here, because of the differences in culture, the number of vehicles, and the layout of the cities.
@@kelaarin there is nothing special about the Netherlands. They were very, very car centric in the 1970, like US is. Nobody will force you to ditch the car. In fact it will make driving better, safer, quicker while also accommodating other road user like pedestrians and cyclists. It's win win. The Netherlands are still one of the best countries to drive a car. The road and motorway network is one of the denses in the world. What has changed is that they started to treat other road users equally alongside car users. I also don't live in the Netherlands , but Dutch (and Swedish) roads are golden standard.
@@cutediz Ahh yes, the old "you're too stupid to know what's good for you" argument.
"Nobody will force you to ditch the car" - except the endless and rising tide of anti-car regulations.
"In fact it will make driving better, safer, quicker" - and yet, none of it is.
"While accomodating other road users like pedestrians and cyclists" - Pedestrians aren't supposed to be on the road, except at legal crossings, and yet many of them ignore the legal crossings. Cyclists have to obey the same laws that cars do, and yet most cyclists simply ignore those laws too.
"The Netherlands are still one of the best countries to drive a car" - You clearly haven't, because it's HELL to drive there - I've tried. Most of Europe isn't any fun to drive.
"Dutch roads are the golden standard" - in your mind, clearly. But not here.
Although I agree with you that Stroad's are bad and don't utilize the space effectively as they are trying to do too many things at once, but I don't agree with your distinction of what road's and streets are and how to convert them to strictly one or the other. If street's and roads were effective then we wouldn't have ever changed to the stroad option. There clearly needs to be more options explored such as...
Stroad is great. Convenient in every way.
Not at all lol
Driving 15 minutes down the stroad just to get to the other side of the road even though it is only 900 feet away is not convenient.
@@ANTSEMUT1 we in Texas have stroad all over the place. You don’t need drive 15 min. For a place where summer is 100 F, driving is a good choice. Just have a little bit open mind, biking and walking aren’t necessary a good solution.
@@texassabre7214 what part of driving the long route to cross the stroad do you not understand, I'd rather not take the circuitous route when i can see the bloody thing right in front of me. Also i live in a country on the equator, 37.8°C isn't as uncommon as you are making it out to be. To say nothing of the fact all that asphalt is partly why it's hot as balls.
@@ANTSEMUT1 Meh, been to Europe where your idea was applied. Every house is over 1M. Thanks.
parking lots are necessary for people to patronize the business though
Only if you design everything around cars around rather than people.
Only if people are chose to arrive by car.
i challenge you to visit any european city or town and keep this belief
@@gildone84 well, cars have PEOPLE inside them
in these suburban environments big parking lots are a necessary evil. in dense european cities, not really
This is ridiculous. Like a "stroad" is all bad? A stroad is something that is common in the suburbs. Many of our chain retail stores and restaurants exist on them. When going shopping to those store or out to eat, you usually take a car. It's something synonymous with our environment and our method of transportation.
Many cities are not large enough to utilize a street in the sense that you describe. Streets that have that kind of foot traffic are lousy for cars to drive through, have poor parking space, and are really only common in highly dense and urban environments. Well, a lot of areas in the U.S. are not dense enough to properly utilize a street like you suggest. Stroads are not the downfall of our society, they have been the success story to many businesses, and make life easier in a car centric world.
That's the point. Do we want "car centric" culture when everything is saying it's unsustainable financially and long car commutes are making us fat and time spent driving is time not spent doing hobbies, enjoying family or friends, or accomplishing anything at great expense.
Or a people centric design that values human connection and financial viability?
Eventually the market will choose for you as Departments of Transportation aren't going to be able to maintain the current level of infrastructure and funding is going to have to come from somewhere. The cities have already subsidized the suburban/rural sprawl to this point and can no longer.
A.J. Wilkes
Yes the the majority of people who live in the suburbs want to live a 'car-centric' lifestyle. We live in a modern society, my wife and I both work so we use daycare. When you have kids you need to be at certain place at exact times. Relying on public transit isn't an option. I am not against mass transit but its for people in a different lifestyle.
There is nothing wrong with a car-centric society. People who don't want to live a car centric lifestyle gravitate toward urban centers, which is fine for them. But not for everyone. Let us live our lives in the suburbs and you live your in the urban center.
StPaulDave There's no "Let us live our lives here and you live over there" when my income tax dollars are going to subsidize your lifestyle in a non-equitable manner. Drivers don't fund the federal interstates and state highways with user fees and funding automobile only transit is now having to come from general funds that we all pay to cover the gap in funding from insufficient fuel taxes, whether you drive everyday or not. If it weren't for the subsidy you receive every-time you get on a federally or state funded interchange on a non-tolled federal interstate or state highway powered by fuel that isn't tax sufficiently to maintain what your driving on, my guess is you might rationally change your behavior by not having to drive so much and find alternate transportation.
And before you talk about mass transit and local roads being subsidized as well, those are paid for by sales and property taxes that I pay by living and working in the area that utilizes them, a completely different mechanism than interstates and highways.
A.J. Wilkes Actually no mass transit isn't only funded by local municipalities, I wish it was. Here is an article form today from my metro about people being upset that the fed's may not cover half of their over 1 billion dollar light rail project.
www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2014/12/did-massive-federal-spending-bill-just-screw-funding-southwest-lrt?.com&
So is your beef really about subsidizing or 'car-centric' culture? You are kind of hopping around here.
StPaulDave It's all connected since money is the life-blood. You make a terrific point about Federal subsidies in mass-transit projects and that's a good conversation to have if a something should exist if it can't pay for itself without non-local tax revenues or solvent borrowing.
But if that's the standard, then it's clear that the suburban car-centric lifestyle isn't financially sustainable without subsidies for interstates and highways, subsidies for home mortgages, subsidies for municipal borrowing, and subsidies to bail out the banks.
That's the issue I have, since in the end we all lose due to a misallocation of resources.
It would help if the author could at least use the correct terms instead of making up his own definitions. Well at least if he doesn't want to sound like a fool at least. A Road is the thing itself. Then you have Streets, Highways and Freeways as types of Roads. Like a German Shepard is a type of Dog. A Street is a type of Road.
What he foolishly claims is a road is the very definition of a Freeway.
Oh man, I this guy is in desperate need of an actual education. A dictionary would probably also wouldn't hurt.
A freeway is a more specific term. Would you call a single lane road in the middle of nowhere a freeway?
Pack em in like cattle boys! This guy wants to ride his bike!
Wow. You really missed the point. It zoomed right over your head at light speed.
Stroads are bad for cars either.
If only I've been enlightened in 2013🥲