#stroads

[sylviaodhner]

The Walk Light

Does crossing an intersection on foot have to take this long? I think we can do better. My friend Alex Zorach helped me come up with the idea for this one.

#walkability #car dependency #new urbanism #stroads #crosswalk #humanscaled #art #comics

[lifeofbk]

Not Just Bikes is always good for a solid dose of “fuck cars” and possibly “why do I live in the US?”. Their latest piece is particularly succinct and painful.

#fuck cars #urban planning #public transit #transportation #stroads #I’ll take a job in the Netherlands #Youtube

[the-city-in-mind]

Jason Slaughter visits Montreal in his longest video to date, and gives a balanced look at the city’s recent efforts to move forward with pedestrianization, better transit and bike infrastructure, tempered with the reality that a lot of the city is still suffering from postwar car-centric “urban renewal,” and that while the Metro and REM are impressive, surface transit is slow and very patchy outside core neighborhoods.

It is illustrative of the fact that a lot of the damage created by cars is hard to undo, and cities often end up with “islands of walkability” hemmed in between arterial roads.

#urbanism #not just bikes #jason slaughter #montreal #bike infrastructure #montreal metro #stroads #Youtube

[atlurbanist]

A call to action: accept that car-sewer development was a mistake that needs fixing

Here's the block of Candler Rd in Decatur where a woman and small child were critically injured yesterday while walking.

I see bus stops (and many destinations) where no crosswalks exist. Out of view are hundreds of apartments.

It's yet another state road filled with development, but designed entirely for car flow/speed.

While people around the region were driving to lunch on Mother's Day, many others who can't afford cars or can't drive were struggling in environments like this.

One call-to-action needed in the wake of this violence is simply a widespread acceptance that this type of development is a terrible mistake.

The second image shows another view of the block: it's an inhumane place for stores, jobs, and homes.

MARTA has to serve this hell. People have to walk here.

The fact that hundreds of apartments and many jobs and stores sit alongside this pedestrian-hostile GDOT route -- while detached homes sit on safer streets -- is wrong. This type of planning (and let's have no misunderstanding: every bit of it was planned) was an inhumane action, informed by racism and class bias.

The ability to own a car and afford a down payment on a detached home is a kind of gatekeeping. It provides privilege to people who benefit from zoning that matches their income/wealth with safer spaces. Others get punished.

Until that's accepted as true, little progress will be made.

#atlanta #urbanism #pedestrian safety #walkability #urban planning #car centric development #stroads #car sewers

[yourfavehatesstroads]

Enoch from Over The Garden Wall hates stroads (Happy spooky season babey 😈)

#stroads #your fave #your fave says #your fave hates stroads #shitpost #meme #let's ban stroads #urban planning #ban stroads #stroad #over the garden wall #otgw #over the garden wall Enoch #otgw enoch #spooktember #halloween #spooky season #enoch hates stroads

[recently-reanimated]

Gonna start putting hyperlinks in my posts so my followers can learn more like its a Wikipedia article

For example:

Car commercials in america need to stop showing their suvs driving down a twisty mountain road in their ads. They need to show people stopping at 15 red lights on a stroad because that's everyone's daily drive looks like.

#cars #not just bikes #stroads

[elektroskopik]

Dear universe, bicycles are not a nuisance. They are a perfectly valid, quiet, and rarely violent means of transportation.

Cars and trucks, on the other hand, are like the AR-15s of the freeway. Maybe, just maybe, we should take a moment and reflect on how many deaths they have caused.

#fuck cars #cars #automobile #trucks #road rage #bicycles #the war on cars #pedestrians #urban infrastructure #city infrastructure #ar 15 #air pollution #car crash #environment #infrastructure #suburbia #vehicular manslaughter #road safety #stroads #stroad #cycling #asphault #walking #five minute city

[its-kks-world]

Stroads are streets that are designed like roads and in doing so, fail at being good at either one. They are too sprawling and hostile to be good streets, and they are too busy and complicated to be good roads. Stroads are inefficient, unsafe, expensive, and ugly.

This video introduces the concept of Stroads, and talks about why you will (almost) never find these kind of places in the Netherlands: because here all roads need to have a single purpose as either a motorway, connector road, or end-destination street. The name "stroad" was invented by Strong Towns as a way to explain why road design in the US is fundamentally broken.

As a person who is fairly invested in the idea the USA needs to invest in public transit and designing cities/towns that aren’t hideous, this video gives a great view of what that could look like.

#design #public transit #walkable cities #stroads #maybe solarpunk

[redrobinridinghood]

Is this the Dream we were promised?

Here’s the original pic, it’s still not very nice to look at, is it?

#stroad #liminal space #liminal aesthetic #dreamcore #oddcore #unreality #dereality #consumerism #consume #stroads #stores #I hate this place #liminal #liminality #road #street #American dream #dream #??? #hate this place #hate #i am uncomfy #uncomfy #bad vibes #do not like #don't like #ugly #ugly place

[cnu-newurbanism]

Reflecting back, looking forward

The top articles for 2022 have a lot to say about the world of city building and where we are headed for the new year.

On Public Square we often write about big topics and projects, such as regional plans or freeway transformations, but the most popular article of 2022 is focused on something small—a grouping of eight houses in a “cottage court” (see photo at top). The article from March, “Endearing and enduring, cottage court is designed to last a millennium,” covers a strikingly attractive group of homes built by designer and mason Clay Chapman that brings an abandoned building technique back to life—foot-thick brick-and-mortar walls.

The next article to go viral, also published in March, had “car-free” in the title. “Car-free hill town is designed in nature” reported on Las Catalinas, a new urbanist resort town in Costa Rica where people arrive at the edge of town and then walk everywhere they need to go.

The next popular piece, from June, covers “Seven stroads that have been converted to streets.” Most Public Square readers will not need an explanation, but a “stroad” is a ubiquitous half-road, half-street that is found all across America, especially in the suburbs. 

For a few weeks in September, the US was obsessed with the life and death of Queen Elizabeth and a new monarch on the throne, King Charles. Despite a forcible divorce from Britain nearly 250 years ago, we still love the royal family. At Public Square our contribution to this global story was an article on Charles’s long-time interest in architecture and urban design, and the development of a remarkable new town called Poundbury (“The new urbanist developer King”). 

Rounding out the top five is an article that posted just before Christmas, “Turning an office park into a town center.” Many Americans are tired of the automobile-oriented sprawl that has consumed the US landscape for more than seven decades, and are looking for better ways to use some of these places. 

Read the full article.

#journalism #public square #2022 reflection #office parks #new urbanism #urbanism #city planning #cottage court #car free #stroads #sprawl #monarchy #development

[quotesfrommyreading]

A decade ago, Charles Marohn coined the term “stroad” to describe roads like US-19. Marohn, a professional engineer who used to work on road design, wanted a useful shorthand for a problem that has become a feature of many communities. A road, Marohn explained, is meant to move people as quickly as possible from one location to another, and engineers design them to be wide, with lots of lanes and clear zones on either side to make driver errors less deadly. Streets, on the other hand, are places: where people live, shop, eat, and play. Because streets are highly developed on either side, vehicle traffic needs to be slow, to accommodate people outside of cars.

A “stroad,” Marohn says, is the worst of both worlds. “If you think of a futon that’s trying to be both a couch and a bed and does neither of them well — that’s a stroad. A stroad tries to be both a street and a road at the same time, and it underperforms at both,” he says. Stroads are highly congested, with drivers stuck in stop-and-go traffic and turning across several lanes, and the potential for collisions increasing exponentially.

“Stroads are really deadly,” Marohn says. And US-19, with its high speeds, multiple lanes, cars turning on and off — and people walking, biking, and using wheelchairs — is kind of like a stroad on steroids. “This is literally the deadliest design that we could come up with,” he says.

 —   How a stretch of US-19 in Florida became the deadliest road for pedestrians

#marin cogan #how a stretch of us-19 in florida became the deadliest road for pedestrians #urban planning #engineering #transport #roads #stroads #traffic #traffic collisions #cars #trucks #pedestrians

[bedupolker]

people saying "Backpacking alone in the woods? Isn't that dangerous?" when we suburban youths spend ages 12-17 walking in places like this

#i walk a lonely stroad

[the-city-in-mind]

Rob Robinson is a young musician from Asheville, NC who has made some really thoughtful and watchable videos about how his state DOT is stroad-ifying his city.

Here’s the first:

and the follow-up:

#urbanism #stroads #ncdot #rob robinson #north carolina #asheville #Youtube

[sweetpeawriter-tm]

I hate stroads. Not to be a typical 'not just bikes' youtube watcher but I lived neard a stroad until like...three weeks ago lol. I still live near one but it's right next to a walkable area so w/e.

anyways- the stroad near my old home was just. nasty. We had no sidewalks. there was just cars going 40 miles per hours with a huge parking lot but no stores? So we couldn't even use it for shopping. There was literally no point in ever stopping there. That whole place coulda been residental areas lol.

Now where I live, I'm next to a movie theater. Like a five minute walk next to. That is also where a bakery is, a local Asian food store, a dollar store, and a gym. (and a gun store...still american!). A little more down then that you got a bus line and a bowling alley! All 15 minutes away via walking! It's faster to walk then drive!!

This is due to HAVING sidewalks and paths that let people do this! I am already planning to hit some places this week because I can't drive yet (the DMV wants me dead cause they are blocked till November). This really is perfect for me or anyone.

anyways this random rant was just comparing how it is to live like in the suburbs compared to a 15 minute bus ride away from downtown. I don't think I'll ever go back tbh. I love the walking and the people and I've only been here a month!

#sweetpea.txt #stroads

[yourfavehatesstroads]

Granny Puckett from Hoodwinked hates stroads

#hoodwinked #granny puckett #abigail puckett #Granny Puckett hates stroads #your fave #your fave says #your fave hates stroads #stroads #Stroad #ban stroads #shitpost #meme #joke #maybe let's not put highways in the middle of our fucking cities #just a thought #lmao bye

[swordy-da-goat]

That scarf is pretty long, is that ideal for road work? Seems like it could get caught in smth

The scarf isn’t always on. If the site is dangerous, then the vest-coat and the scarf are usually off.

You don’t need to become a cone to hang out with them :)

They specialize in other safety stuff too, but focus a lot more on road safety because of the car infested landscape known as America 🇺🇸.

And for other wizards, I haven’t come up with any so I dunno. Their cones are enough company.

#the road wiz #sqwonks #god i hate stroads #so ugly #and impractical