The Stroad: A Case Study // Intended (and Unintended) Consequences of Car-Oriented Street Design
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- Charles Marohn (Strong Towns) coined the word "stroad" (a portmanteau of "street" and "road") to describe roadway facilities that simultaneously attempt to function as urban commercial streets and high-speed, high-throughput motor vehicle thoroughfares -- and manage to fail miserably at both.
(For a more thorough walkthrough of what stroads are and why they might not be a great idea, check out the great primer from @NotJustBikes -- • Stroads are Ugly, Expe... )
In this video we'll dive into some of the key characteristics of these usually hideous arterials: too many travel lanes that are too long, with intersections that are too big and signal cycle lengths that are way too long. And we'll look at the consequences of typical stroad design: narrow, curb-tight sidewalks, infrequent and under-designed pedestrian crossings, fast food drive-thrus and other auto-oriented sprawl, and...lots and lots of billboards.
Check out these other CityNerd videos on urban traffic:
Exponential Traffic: • Why Traffic Congestion...
On Induced Demand: • Induced Demand & Roadw...
Tunnels: • Traffic Tunnel Pros an...
Not Just Bikes' excellent primer on stroads (with telling comparisons to Dutch roadway facilities): • Stroads are Ugly, Expe...
Resources:
Stroad entry from the universe's foremost clearing house for factual information: en.wikipedia.o...
Image Credits:
Northern Spotted Owl By Hollingsworth, John and Karen; photo by USFS Region 5 (Pacific Southwest) - US Fish and Wildlife Servicedigitalmedia.fw..., Public Domain, commons.wikime...
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com 
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![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
Judging by the advertising, an average day of an average inhabitant of Las Vegas consists of washing their car, fueling and driving it, crashing into another person's vehicle, suing that person, and buying a new car.
At least you can grab some fast food in-between.
So good.
Those businesses have to go somewhere. Where would you put them?
while eating a burger they got from the many fast food joints on the strode they crashed their car on.
You forgot about the buying fast food thru the drive thru in their car, then eating that fasting also in the car.
I literally had to watch this twice because I was laughing so much the first time.
I'm really glad you made this video though, because I thought I was overdoing the dry sarcasm in my videos. You've just shown me that I should be doing more of it, not less.
Hi Jason, you here too? lol
oh please :P
Please do more of it.
We need a collab between you two guys, the more dry sarcasm against stroads, the better
@@miguelbarov2241 There but for the sake of an “a” go I.
I think what's even crazier is that these stroads end up having more lanes than actual highways...
7 lanes for one direction…yup.
Because they are bad at being a street and bad at being a road at the same time. Very inefficient traffic design.
Edit: Also stroads are also bad from an environmental standpoint. Highways save gas by keeping the traffic flowing while these stroads are a constant stop and go.
On the other hand, think what you could do with these amazingly wide rights-of-way!
I think my favorite part are the stroads that have sidewalks that randomly end and give you nowhere to go but that NARROlW Strip between the white line and the ditch.
@CityNerd - I think the videos need more sarcasm and dry humor
@@CityNerd There's major city boulevards, typically 6 and sometimes 8 lanes wide (outside intersections), in which the outer lanes are used for unauthorized curbside parking along business corridors. It would be safer and more efficient to close the outermost lane and turn it into curbside parking, and perhaps ideally slim down the remaining travel lanes from 12ft to 10ft (3.6m to 3.0m). That would result in a space saving of 8 to 12 ft (2.4 to 3.6m), which can be used to widen each sidewalk by 4-6 ft (1.2-1.8m).
Indicator species of a stroad: 20 cars waiting in a center left turn lane to get into a DQ. Also, getting lost in a signalized left turn lane because there are two of them.
you need to (grill &) chill bro
On the one hand, 20 cars in the CLTL = traffic consultant that analyzed the drive-thru blacklisted by the city. OTOH, blizzards are objectively delicious, so what can you do
@@MrTaxiRob there's nothing chill about stroads
@@hobog DQ has a lunch special you should check out sometime... at participating restaurants
"Left to their own devices, traffic engineers will always build New Jersey" - Justin Roczniak
A "well there's you're problem" fan? Or anything from Donoteat!
@@stink1701 WTYP mostly because Justin barely does anything on his own channel anymore
ALL TURNS FROM RIGHT LANE
Nice
Is it still a stroad if it has jughandles?
We've all been there: driving down the road with your windmill blade in the back, and suddenly you get the call that you urgently need to deliver it to the wind farm on the other side of town.
Completely plausible and an ironclad justification for urban arterials with a 200' ROW
Funny you should mention that. I was delivering some power plant equipment and a subway car (not in the same load) just last week and that very same thing happened each time.
At least theres ample parking if you want to stop at a Mc Donald's for a break or something. Simply blame the delay on a traffic jam and the need for more lanes.
@@SofaKingShit As an Aussie, and half-cut, your user name is pure poetry.
@@SofaKingShit The problem is, those windmill blades don't get along very well with a McDonald's drive-thru.
I don't understand how people aren't getting walkability. In Silicon Valley, we closed the streets that make up downtown to cars in a bunch of our cities (Murphy in Sunnyvale, Castro in Mountain View, and I think University in Palo Alto as well). People love these places, and the parking garages next to all three of these downtowns (each and every one of which has a major CalTrain stop) are always full. Yet, when anyone talks about shrinking El Camnio Real, our arterial stroad which runs parallel to two freeways, it's shouting and screaming and loud opposition. Even a bus lane for the 522 Rapid gets shouted down. I do not understand how both these things are happening in the same places at the same times.
Weird how all those places you mention have money.
It's extremely weird how common it is for people to drive to and park at a place where they can walk around and enjoy a vibrant urban setting. I get it, but it's weird!
@@DiogenesOfCa This. They have money, therefor they have power. A lot of the arterial stroad areas are poor as heck, and so the suburban white assholes bully them so they cna have their segregated shopping district.
I live in Ottawa, and even though the entire ward is against a new ugly pencil tower in our little italy, it'll be passed, and without any opposition from council, because the rich ass suburban white blue-lives-matter idiots will vote yes on the project without a single consession. They want to shove the poors into our ward and they have the power to do it.
The solution? activism and mutual aid.
I imagine a place like Las Vegas much worst than Ottawa, and the poor inner city wards are likely stuck never getting any of their infastructure stuff passed.
@@CityNerd In a way, the indoor mall is the ultimate example of this.
@@nathanielmackler7225 Actually I'd argue that Disneyland is the ultimate example
I’d add strip malls as a part of the stroad environment. The nesting ground of species such as “Drug Stores”, “Generic Pizza Places”, and more “Nails Salons” than a city can probably support
This is very funny to me because strip malls (in all seriousness) are an outgrowth of the same logic as the stroad. Specifically, the primary design philosophy of a strip mall is to minimize the amount of walking that occurs. If the strip mall is functioning correctly, a customer will arrive in a car and park more or less right in the front door of the business they are patronizing. With a little luck, they will be able to traverse the frightful outdoors between the business entrance and their vehicle with less than five steps. In fact a properly designed strip mall should allow you to get from your bed to the nail salon and back again without being outside for more than 10 seconds in total.
We have miles and miles of tattoo parlors and smoke shops in our beat down strip malls.
@@p1mason all of this is especially helpful in anti-human environments like Las Vegas
Don't forget low end liquor stores, Mattress stores, and DMV offices!
Yeah, I kind of glossed over strip malls in this video (there's footage, but I didn't really dwell on it), but I totally agree. Don't forget vape shops!
One of my favorite indicator species is the Bench No One Sits On, and its close relative The Bench Thats Actually Just a Billboard. Both are placed facing the oncoming traffic and are close enough to the stroad to feel the air currents of the speeding cars. Bonus points when the billboard is an advertisement for the bench itself. I once saw giant Tiger eyes staring down the traffic with something akin to "YOU LOOKED! See, these work!" and was purely there to distract the drivers as they went through the intersection.
My favorite sidewalk obstacles are the abandoned giant metal construction barricades laying on their sides, which workers forgot about after their project, forcing cyclists and pedestrians into the traffic lanes (which at that point have not been under construction for over a week).
Coming from a transportation engineering perspective, it's a breath of fresh air (pun intended) to see people realizing the mistakes of the past and trying to design cities to be more efficient and human-friendly not car friendly. Thankfully the group in the company I work for take on projects that remove lanes instead of adding more to the struggling network like our highway group does
There's a huge business in retrofitting these bad boys, that's for sure.
Isn't fast driving cars efficient? I think we need to consciously make priority decisions. If getting rid of Stroad is the highest priority, then accessibility and efficiency are *not* priority... All these very quaint, beautiful European cities were built 500 years ago when mode of transportation was different, and mainly built for Aristocrats and rich people... Just keep that in mind.
@@kevinmsft sounds like you've never been to Europe...
@@kain0m many times...
@@kevinmsft But it's extremely bad for the local economy. Cars that drive fast are cars that are not going to be parked nearby for the driver to go shopping, they are through-traffic that could have just as easily been routed *around* the city center. Cities are not liminal spaces, they should be destinations.
The Dutch "autoluw" philosophy limits throughfare in city centers to encourage locals and visitors to shop on foot.
In this setup, car traffic should, idealy, consist of destination traffic only (with cars encouraged to park within multi-story car garages). Autoluw traffic calming methodology discourages drivers who aren't in the area for the area itself from adding to city congestion, by making through traffic take more car-centric roads on the further-out bands of the city.
It's been proven time and time again that limiting car throughput in city centers makes for better business, because bicyclists do not demand much road space (meaning 4 cyclists could fit in roughly the same amount of space that a car would demand, regardless of how many occupants it boasts - and the bicycle is over all a less hazardous object from the perspective of other road users, and makes for a quieter vehicle which also means more pleasant public spaces). Pedestrians will window-shop, and are generally more amiable to stopping by a local eatery or bar to get a bite or drink with friends.
(Bonus: having fewer people driving cars in the city center will mean fewer people drunkenly stumbling out of bars and into their car to cause vehicular accidents.)
Can you talk about how to “de-sprawl” a city? A city like houston seems so reliant on a car that I wonder if there are any ways that we can reverse the massive suburban sprawl
Love this video idea
It would make for a great point of reference on grassroots urban reformation
You have to make cities attractive for people to live in. You have to build more than just dense housing, but services and green spaces as well. Block after block of five-over-ones is just gross. I imagine it would all be about finding the magic number of primates per hectare.
Yes! A solutions video
I'll put it on my list, but I'm not sure there's a snappy/sarcastic 12-15 minute video that would address this adequately!
Allow mixed-use development, for one, and remove parking+offset minimums
This is a masterpiece, even by lofty CityNerd standards. Could not have been better
I appreciate that -- it's different from my usual!
I agree!
Yes I second that
I third that this is his best work!
One of the main takeaways I got from reading Marohn's book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, was the curve of vehicle speed vs likelihood of pedestrian fatality in vehicle-pedestrian collisions, and I think it was around 19 miles per hour where a pedestrian is about 50% likely to die from the collision.
I mention this, because for me, the main indicator of a stroad is token pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure (narrow sidewalks, painted but unprotected bike lanes, few and mostly unprotected crosswalks) combined with lethal vehicle speeds.
Clearly, there is at least an admission that people are supposed to be able to walk here (unlike, say, highways, where bike and foot traffic are usually banned, at least in non-emergency situations), but are given little protection from cars.
One example that stood out to me in your video was the bus stops, where the sides of the bus stop were angled inward because if they were squared like normal, they would take up the *entire* sidewalk and riders would have to move into the road just to enter the bus stop.
The transit stop design is super-tortured. I feel for RTC -- they're working with what they've got, but people who ride transit just deserve so much more respect -- I have to make jokes to conceal my white-hot anger.
I think it was NotJustBikes who pointed out how North American excuses for bike infrastructure are designed so that if something bad happens with a car, any person on a bicycle in the bicycle lane is very likely to be severely injured or killed.
But there are also stroads where there's clearly no conception of the idea that somebody might use anything other than a car to move from one place to another, e.g. author Bill Bryson describes a situation where he was on one side of the stroad and wanted to visit a shop on the other side, and it was abundantly clear through the lack of sidewalks, signalling, and crosswalks, that nobody had considered the possibility of somebody wanting to cross said stroad on foot.
@@thexalon This is because in North America, cars are considered safer and more accessible by the general populace. Whenever such discussions come up, people tell me that not everyone can walk long distances or ride a bike, but everyone can drive. When I bring up I can't drive, they then switch to asking why I even attempt to live on my own, as if driving is an indication of whether one is an adult or a dependent child. Unfortunately, I personally think it all stems back to how easy it is to get and maintain a driver's license in the USA.
@@KyurekiHana it goes further back than that. it has to do with the creation of the highway system as a way to maintain the economy after world war 2, ya know, when a ton of highly unstable murder machines called soldiers came back home and needed a way to keep busy while having Normandy flashbacks. not just bikes has a great piece where he talks about how there where many early cities that had great bike infrastructure until the great cargasm. car's are considered safer because the infrastructure was built so that was the case, and it was built so that was the case with the help of a hefty amount of lobbying and kickbacks on the behalf of the car industry, so that they could profit more. we have the most expensive system available, because that's what allows corporations to suck more profits out of you. neoliberalism baby.
@@KyurekiHana capitalism is not inclusive
if your population thinks about squeezing out more profits/numbers 5 times a day it begets exclusion zones
blacks can live outside an landmark ,pedestrians cant perform the daily chores ,the safety of every living thing near those 7 lane things
ruclips.net/video/79FG5AR_dxY/видео.html
Would absolutely love a "solutions" video! So often these kinds of videos leave me depressed and hopeless about our cities, so I'd love to hear what kind of things we may be able to do to incrementally make things better
The Netherlands.
Really a solution may be imposed by geology and nature. #PeakOil has arrived as of November 2018. Oil production is only going to decrease. But the problems will be immense and unsolvable.
The silver lining of the stroad is that there's a lot of space to work with. You could widen the sidewalk, add in protected bike lanes and BRT down the middle and still have enough room for 2-3 car lanes per direction.
Another similar thing you can do is change the inner 3~4 roads in any stroad with more than 8~9 lanes into bus-only lanes + stations (or a train railway if you're feling fancy). This helps with bus issues, and provides a "safe" middle-ground between one part of the stroad and the next.
To make it for busses you don't really need much (in relative terms of infraestructure): just some raised ground for the bus stops, plus concrete barriers to delimit the bus lanes. The main challenge will come in the form of making buses travel there with _proper_ routes and frequency, then getting people to use them.
To make it for trains would add an interesting challenge, as the intersection lights should be timed pretty toughtfully to minimize time spent waiting:
- Be green for straight movement while the train stops at the station, then passes.
- Be green for all left turners while pedestrians cross the other sidewalk.
- Be green for all right turners while pedestrians do the other crossing.
- Be green for the intersecting street...
...Or well, whatever the best option is for each intersection.
Honestly, just having a *good* train along a stroad that connects cities/towns will probably make a big number of non-public-transit-crippled people forced to use cars switch onto it fast.
My city (San Jose, California) has been removing lanes from some stroads. We call it a "road diet". There are a few near me that went from two lanes in each direction, to one lane in each direction with a nice wide bike lane on each side, with a painted buffer zone. I'm loving it.
Very insightful to tie the prevalence of personal injury advertising to a facility clearly not designed with safety in mind. Nice.
Thanks, Kenny. It's something that definitely jumps out at you if you come from a city where personal injury law isn't a highly visible industry.
Phoenix is the exact same way- grid system of arterial roads and a cluster of law offices and attorney billboards in the lower-income parts of town. It's kind of depressing when you notice the pattern
@@TarenNauxen Billboards in general are problematic. They are normally located in poor areas and used to almost always advertise for things like cigarettes or alcohol targeting lower income folks.
@@CityNerd As a European, I'm not sure how much those billboards say about the safety of the road versus the law system if you are in an accident... 😅
@@CityNerd You know they're serious and can get things done when they're holding a baseball bat or sledgehammer on their billboard or ad on the side of the city bus.
Would have been happy walking away with the phrase "stroad on stroad violence," but you gave us so much more than that! Your commentary is top notch.
Albeit a Dutchman, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the '60s and '70s. I am all too familiar with these off-putting, soulless, deeply depressing stroads that are ubiquitous in the US. I left the US in 1986 to work in the UK. Upon retirement in 2018, I returned to my native Netherlands. I have found my rightful place in the world. I often feel as if I am in paradise in beautiful Middelburg. Despite the urban sprawl in this country, there are, fortunately, many lovely sites and places to savour. Pedestrian and cycle oriented town centres teem with activity, cafés, shops, flats, and historic buildings; they have an identity... a soul. Those elements are missing far too often in the US.
i am living in the US. my soul missing is confirmed.
My city has the worst stroad I have ever seen in my life so far: it's a 3 lane stroad with a 55 mph speed limit and endless strip malls directly to the right, no turning lanes so people are constantly slowing down to a near stop to turn into businesses, and on the left cars are streaming in from the parallel major interestate. The lanes are also extremely tight with barely any clearance between you and the curb.
Sounds like half of Atlanta
Like Kingston Pike in Knoxville, which is US-11/70 that runs parallel to I-40 and is all strip malls and fast food.
Are you talking by Austin? Cause it sounds like Austin.
Sounds like Detroit, too. And Cleveland.
@@MarisaClardy it is in Texas - El Paso. I was used to stroad hell in AZ but this is next level awful infrastructure.
I'd love to hear a solutions take on this. Like many, I recently discovered NJB's Stroads video that sent me down a rabbit hole, and now I realize why I hate driving in my town, even though I'd consider myself a car enthusiast.
We just had an election in my town and the person who lost had some really great ideas for more pedestrian focused changes to our downtown, but they lost. I feel like not enough people know about this, and anyone who I do talk to, I don't have enough "ammunition" to say what we should do besides bringing out the bulldozers. Thanks.
as someone who loves cities and also loves cars, roads (not streets) are where cars are enjoyed. ways forward are 1) zoning changes allowing intesification to the next level (single-family home turning into a duplex or 4plex). 2) allowing multi-use buildings so denser communities can make cafes and corner stores without having to drive to 100% of activities. 3) this means streets need to be safer and slower. street parking and protected bike/walk lanes can help slow street traffic. 4) the main arterial stroad might evolve to become a road and start removing access slowly over time (organically, probably)
I think those obstructed footpaths highlight something quite profound. Specifically, streets are the spaces between properties, belonging to everyone and set aside for the various uses and conveniences that everyone needs. The transit operator needs a place for people to wait, that's what the street is for. The electric company needs a place to string powerlines, that's what the street is for. Water utilities need a place to bury pipes, that's what the street is for. It's more than just pedestrians and cyclists, it's delivery drivers, the cable company, even the DOT who needs space to place directional and regulatory signage. Philosophically, we provide the street for all these people and uses.
And yet..
And yet, a lot of people have this notion that the street is provided for cars. (Well they have that notion until the cable company wants to put a utility pole in the middle of their front garden - then suddenly they can think of a whole cornucopia of things that might be better off in the street). Seeing all these non-car uses crowded into the last metre between the carriageway and the property line just emphasizes the fact that "streets are for cars" isn't true. And it never was.
The private and commercial vehicle dominance in the USA is scary.
I love my bicycle(s) for quick trips to the bar, to the book store, to the convenience store, to the stationery store, to work...
If you live somewhere where that's possible, consider yourself fortunate!
@@CityNerd Dublin, Ireland. Not Northern European standards yet but getting there.
Thank you for your contribution to the increasingly vocal global debate on better living.
A City Nerd and Road Guy Rob colab would be interesting
Yes lol
The tonal clash between loud, enthusiastic and very american vs dry, intellectual humour would be awesome. Definitely down for it
That's when they work together in the same laboratory, right?
Or a triple collab with Not Just Bikes: American enthusiasm + dry, educated wit + educated reasonable takedown
Great video! I really liked the "out in the wild" aspect. a video about solutions would be very exciting! I'd particularly love to see ways to turn Stroads into Roads. There are lots of examples and ideas that come to my mind when thinking about turning a Stroad into a Street, but going the other way seems to be a bit more involved. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
To add to your point I think it would be interesting to see light rail considered in a video about solutions, specifically a road like MLK Way in Seattle before and after the light rail. It's definitely still a stroad but there's a lot of infill around stations and it feels a bit safer with slower speeds and reduced opportunities for dangerous left turns.
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll put it on the list.
@@derekc5175 the light rail there is now too high in demand to be compromised by so many level crossings, but I know it's the first stretch opened so it couldn't have been built otherwise
Make it happen to CA-1 between Princeton and Moonridge, it's on the "road" end of the stroad spectrum (for now) but the constant lights and driveways are just...
If you make a solutions video, you should take a look at Queens Blvd, arguably the most infamous stroad in New York. It used to be called the boulevard of death, but over the years there has been many improvements to make it safer.
Yeah, I reviewed Queens Boulevard briefly for Workhorse Streets -- but you're right, it would be interesting to do a Stroads success story, if such a thing exists!
We have a lot of those in Mexico too!
Another indicators would be confusing jurisdiction in the mind of the people using it, because the stroud just to be a highway that then became the states jurisdiction and than the city's.
Also dealerships!
There's always dealerships while entering the stroad, so many of them even one in front of the other and here we also have just random billboards with huge phone numbers, not even someone's number, just the phone number to purchase the billboard!
Oh, I've got a whole idea about confusing jurisdictions!
I live along "Street road" in the suburbs of Philadelphia and I think it is a quintessential stroad, even named appropriately.
Here in Germany the maximum speed within city Limits is 50 Km/h (~30mph). More and more places even get 30 Km/h (~18mph) speed limit now. Exceptions are only for highways within city limits. And yes, they also do exist here, but are quite rare, thankfully.
Actually belly laughed at the 45mph zebra crossing.... How on earth is that allowed!
In France there are many pseudo zebra crossings as well on busy arterial roads.
There's literally a widely-used government report (NCHRP 562) that explicitly tells you that untreated crossings on 45 mph streets are awful. It shocked me to see it.
“Placed that spell Town with an E” lol that line made me laugh because it’s pretty accurate as far as what I’ve seen, even being in the opposite site of the country
or "shoppes", as one of my local shopping centers calls itself
English is my second language and I live in Canada.
I remember the 1st time I saw an injury attorney ad on American tv as a kid. The ad had big bold text saying things like BROKEN BONES and BURNS. I was in complete shock; I was convinced that the man in the ad was a hitman that was advertising his torturing services.
I'd love to see a "solutions" video cause to be honest, I have no idea how you'd go about fixing the typical North American strode....
As a frequent wheelchair user I noticed so many violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. If I lived there and had to put up with that I’d be finding a lawyer to sue property owners.
The ADA requires an accessible route to every business. Every business! An ADA-compliant accessible route isn’t a parking lot either. This is why at 6:25 and 6:32, Wendy’s and Dutch Brothers respectively, you see a walk connecting to the awfully narrow public sidewalk. This is to prevent ADA lawsuits.
Businesses in out lots near the sidewalk are easier to comply, it’s the big boxes and strip malls behind that are a challenge. More affluent areas get significantly better pedestrian infrastructure.
CityNerd, please visit St. Louis. I’ll show you around give you plenty of ADA violations to demonstrate the problems of connecting bus stops to business entrances.
There's an amazing lack of ped connections (much less ADA-compliant ones) to a lot of these retail areas. I've been to St. Louis many times, and hope to come back again soon!
The most absurd stroad animal I've seen: a chain of dental clinics with multiple locations along a single stroad.
I saw this on a family road trip while passing through a big Texas city (Houston?). For some reason a major interstate in the city was closed and we ended up taking an unbelievably long stroad across the city and its suburbs. For more than an hour along this stroad we counted at least 7 instances of all the chains: McDonalds, Wendy's, CVS, and... that chain of dentist clinics with their big gray signs showing a picture of a tooth! The franchises kept repeating among a streetscape filled with strip malls.
A fun thing we experienced: somewhere in the city the lights were timed such that for over 10 blocks just as we arrived at a red stop light it'd turn green. It was so dependable that Dad would snap his fingers and the light would change. A whole line of stop lights (on a weirdly empty stroad) timed to go green one by one in a big long line. The whole minivan was thoroughly amused! It's a bit surreal to remember this now!
That traffic light phenomenon is called "signal progression" or a "green wave"
That’s how traffic lights are supposed to work. Unfortunately in most places they aren’t timed that well.
20 years ago I rode my bicycle from Morro Bay, CA to Palm Beach, FL. Over half of my trip was done on the I-10, Passing through El Paso, Phoenix, Tucson, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans. Mobile, Pensacola, Tallahassee and Gainesville. If I wanted to shop, I had to lock my bike in my motel room and try to get to a shopping centre on foot, that was typically only accessible by car. 15 years later I moved to Haarlem in the Netherlands, where everything was accessible by bike. The difference could not be more pronounced. The USA is made for cars, while Holland is made for people. I applaud you trying to get this message across.
Thanks for sharing -- great comment!
Fabulous video! Loved every minute! I grew up between two Stroads in outer borough SE Portland (between McLoughlin Blvd 99E and 82nd Ave Hwy 213). Both Stroads were deadly for bus riders, pedestrians and bike riders! I loved the comments about injury lawyer bill boards! Really scary crossing these streets. The worst Stroads I have ever seen are in greater Kansas City (NW Barry Road and NW Prairie View in front of the Zona Rosa shopping center and Metcaff and 117th in Overland Park). Good luck crossing those intersections as a pedestrian! Thanks for the insights!
This stroad is not just trying to combine a street and a road, but a highway as well. That's some next level stroad you've got there.
I think the main traffic issues with many stroads are caused by the fact there are a lot of people using the stroad as a road trying to get from A or B and not looking to patronize the businesses along the route. Because they are passing by, they are looking to drive as fast as possible and the frequent traffic lights are a problem. Unfortunately, they don't have a good alternative in most cases, such as a good limited access highway, that would let them bypass the area entirely both improving their travel time as well as reducing traffic for those accessing the businesses.
I believe a good way to quickly have this stroads to proper streets would be to add a BRT with dedicated lanes.
This is what my state did to some huge stroads with 6 lanes going each direction.
2 Brts lanes going each direction and increase sidewalk size
I think 2 lanes either direction is the upper limit for walkability and at that width, a signal with a median is needed for pedestrians to feel comfortable from my experience. So to me a 2 lane(4 lane both direction) is the target goal if we want to downsize a stroad.
As you said, have the two center lane on either side turn to BRT lanes which may mean widening the median too. Eliminate the right turn lane and turn it in to a widen sidewalk. The right most through lane turn into a protected bicycle lane. And the lane next to that can be used for street parking to protect said bicycle lane. So from the video's 7 lane, it is now a 3 lane road in each direction. Which is going to be about as good as it is going to get I think. The reduced car capacity would be easily made up with the new BRT line and the enhanced pedestrian/cycling infrastructure.
Or just build light rail instead. BRT is such a half-arsed solution, it's still just a bunch of busses, but now they get their own lane, which is better than having them run in traffic. Similar or higher max capacity, lower operating cost per passenger (fewer drivers per passenger thanks to larger vehicles), and vehicles that last longer (no tires, no internal combustion engine, means less vehicle maintenance cost). Also, powered by electricity without the need to lug massive batteries around.
@@mariusdufour9186 BRT is about lower infrastructure cost. Converting existing lanes is often just a matter of repainting the lines. CNG buses aren't as terrible as diesel, you can do articulated buses all day and increase capacity of each by 50% SRO. That's a lot cleaner than city buses in traffic. And you could even electrify them if you want, not sure how long it would take to recover the cost on that but the lack of emissions would be a nice bonus.
@@MrTaxiRob Indeed the upfront cost is lower, but not everything is about upfront cost. If a city is serious about providing reliable public transport long term, rudimentary BRT should be a short term, temporary solution while the light rail system is being worked out, at least on the main lines of your system. The problem is that once you start incrementally improving infrastructure for your BRT (beyond some painted lines), you're going to add raised platforms, lane dividers etc. Basically locking in it's right of way. And then when you want to step up to light rail, you'll be forced to follow the alignment of your bus lanes or to start from scratch. Converting an existing BRT system into light rail always results either in a sub-optimal light rail system (the 'cheap' option), or in a light rail system that costs just as much as it would have if you had built it from the start.
If you're going to be providing high capacity public transport on main arteries, the investment in light rail or tramways will more than pay for itself in the long run over BRT, even if we disregard environmental impact, trams and light rail are just so much more cost-efficient to operate once the system is built.
Unfortunately, the county signed a franchise agreement with a private company who is exploring a privately-funded light rail line on Charleston, and until that inevitably implodes, there won't be any high capacity transit on the corridor.
Keep in mind, these are the same county officials who were impressed by Musk's absurd Tesla tunnel.
Your humor and delivery is amazing! I love your dry wit.
Thank you so much for these videos , they are very important and should be shown to every city town council
"Stroad on Stroad violence" lmao, I love these videos so much.
CityNerd is reading the girls today 😆😆 On a more serious note though, this kind of development is so frustrating, because short of complete redevelopment including the commercial corridors on either side, (at prohibitive cost) there isn't much to be done about a megastroad like this. It's like trying to put infill densification into a neighborhood of mcmansions on cul-de-sacs; the paradigm of exclusion which inspires this kind of development actively works against density-focused intervention.
the idea of an "indicator species" for stroads is hilarious and also made me realize the stroads i have in my local environment.
I'm so glad that my subscrption to the "Not Just Bikes" channel brought me to your channel. Both of you (as well as City Beautiful) are doing excellent work!
Having recently (and very reluctantly) moved to a suburb in Northern Virginia, I relate so much to this video. Stroads have become the bane of my existence. Unnecessarily wide roadways with dangerously high speed limits. And if that isn't bad enough, barely any transit options and pedestrian infrastructure. I've been in the US for 7 years and this is the first time I'm experiencing suburban life. It is soul-crushingly terrible!
Being a native Vegas sociologist you just blew my mind! Incredible to see how proper urban planning could have potential positive impact on the upward mobility of our population.
Thank you for all of your videos!
I'd love to see a video on solutions and retrofits for these type of areas. Especially how do you balance the need to move people through the area efficiently without turning it into a wasteland and techniques traffic engineers can use to support that without blowing everything out.
Your snark is unrivaled, thanks for a great video 😂😘
Video suggestion: My wife keeps wanting a train from Nogales (actually Hermosillo) to: Tucson, Casa Grande, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon and Vegas. Millions and millions of people go to Grand Canyon and Vegas every year and why wouldn't this be a great thing? Maybe it continues onto LA?
Second suggestion: do a video on why the proposed I-11 is just a bad idea. If the intent is to move goods across the country when why not build rail lines?
I'd love to see these videos. And since you're in Vegas now, maybe now's the time????
Love you channel and humor and insights!
I would love a train to Phoenix! I don't think it would work as of now as Phoenix is crazy car dependent and there would be pretty much nowhere to go because you went their by train and are now carless.
We live in Tucson and totally understand that. The thinking is if you're going to the GC or Vegas you might not need a car at those places. And how many millions are going from Tucson or Phoenix (residents and tourists) to those two places? Lots, I'd say!! Even going to Flag you could do it without a car and just uber where you want to go.
@@kiraogola6043
Great suggestions. Thanks!
trucking is a big part of the infrastructure to move goods. and id be surprised if they dont have cargo rail lines between the two cities
And yes, I think you should do a solutions video. Im excited for whatever content you provide, judging by how perfectly this video was put together. I even got riled up about the 7 STREET LIGHTS! what????? I was shook.
I have honestly never in my life seen a "school zone" with a 25 mph speed limit *while the lights are flashing.* Every school zone I've ever seen is 15 mph.
That's horrifying lol
Yes, it's very weird. Maybe they think (probably correctly) there's no hope of compliance here with a 15.
My school was 20 which is reasonable for how far back it was set from the road and it had crossing guards. (Also a small town and not a main road so a bunch of kids walked if they lived in town and all schools should be expecting students to walk/bike to school and locate themselves accordingly)
The idea of placing a school on a main road/stroad is crazy to me, and at a minimum a fence should be put up along a busy road that would be problematic.
love the deadpan comedic tone
Yes, I would love a solutions video. I would like to hear your opinions on how to make car-centric sprawl more walkable and transit orientated.
Yes agreed, I’d like to see and live in A more walkable area and more transit orientated. I become very stressed driving with drivers who are drunk, paying attention to their phones, paying attention to anything but driving. Or driving too fast and weaving
Solution 1: if you really need to have a stroad the most it should be is 1 lane each way with a turning lane (suicide lane) and place the sidewalk 3-6 feet back from the curb so its atleast viable to walk down.
Ideally you don't build stoads but this is the most palatable hybrid for the weirdos who don't find a 4lane road with people going 40+ stressful even as the driver. In my hometown Mainstreet is a total of 4 lanes because it is also a US route and several state routes merged into 1 and the turning lanes are very useful for keeping the traffic free flowing and not intimidating. In the nieghboring town there are a couple of 4 lane roads including a proper stroad on outer market street but the traffic isn't bad cause the towns are population 6,000 ish each and the nearest interstate is an hour drive away. (And its paradise, although car dependency is kinda a given for such low density rural areas. But the county does have a bus service that is probably insanely underused)
What everyone, including traffic engineers get wrong about the interstate is that its not meant for civilians, it was built because in 1900 it took 60days to drive from NYC to LA, then 2 world wars happend and president Eisenhower (who drove on that test that took 60days, and on the german Autobahn) created the interstate for national defense reasons. Then the 60s happened and they got built in places they don't belong (cities).
This is the best. It's all the best parts of being in grad school -- a hilarious classmate explaining the world to you, making you laugh, and permanently adding to your mind's toolkit. Where's the accent from? Did he go to my high school?? Love it.
Las Vegas definitely wins the "Weird Lawyer" billboard prize. In comparison, Philadelphia ads just have people in suits, lame.
One of them is just a tshirt dude riding a motorcycle with flames in the background.
If it didn't say LAWYER on it, you'd think it was an ad for Harleys
When I moved to Philly from LV, I never realized that lights could change faster than 1.5 minutes.
Delightful video - a really high level of snark this week.
Well, now I know that there is a name for these places. Who knew? They are often also home to mattress stores and nail salons.
And, yes, I would like to see your solutions!
Mattress stores! How could I forget!
The way you talk about the Stroad as if you were the Commentator of a Nature Documentary-
It's HILARIOUS- :D
I just love your sense of humour!!!
Very funny yet sad and informative.
An example of what not to do!
I’m in Indiana and a lifelong Hoosier. Our stroads mostly don’t bother with mast arms. It’s mainly all about the span wire. Nothing like seeing traffic signal heads bounce around in a windy day.
If there's one thing I'd like all jurisdictions to quit doing is using span wire. Every signal looks temporary!
Some of the nicest traffic signals I've ever seen are in -- wait for it -- Tijuana.
As a New Zealander, it is so weird seeing 'personal injury attoney' billboards. They aren't really a thing over here.
Also loved the sarcastic tone of this video. Your incredibly dry sense of humour is always a delight
The us does not have a universal healthcare system, and even if you have health insurance, the insurance company may require you to sue the at fault party in order for treatment to be covered
Your dry wit is the only thing that made it possible for me to watch this without throwing up. God these places are hideous.
As soon as you said something about the algorithm sending us over from not just bikes, I subscribed. I absolutely love these kinds of videos. My city is strange, we have a bit of everything. Some of the streets are somewhat inconvenient for drivers, because most of the road is dedicated to pedestrians/bikers. Then, there’s streets that are posted 45mph with a 2 foot wide sidewalk with heavy foot traffic. Then, it’s gridlock, with somewhat acceptable walking conditions, and comfortable driving conditions. Don’t even get me started on the suburbs, in my city, there’s 2 kinds. The flat suburb, and the mountainside suburb. I do food delivery, I drive a lot, and I have seen it all. The amount of planned obsolescence, is extraordinary. Don’t get me wrong, I love a freshly paved highway, I couldn’t ask for more. But driving in the city shows just how Terrible city planning can be. Anyway…. F*ck Strodes! Why do we need suburbs to be 7 miles away from the nearest anything. Come on. We can do better. These engineers are so far from reality.
The bit at the end, with all the injury and accident lawyers, really hit home. It is a sobering insight that such a massive industry can live off the traffic follies of a city like Las Vegas. It is even more sobering that they are so blatant about it, screaming it from the rooftops.
If it exists, maybe a video on cities that were stroad heavy but transformed to stroad lite or at least stroad-not-as-bad. And how they did it.
All these stroad videos practically give me PTSD from growing up in the Tampa Bay Area where I feel like every road is a stroad.
Welcome to Vegas! I don’t drive a huge amount, but Charleston is one of my most-used streets, so this video was super neat to see! Vegas is full of over-built streets (in terms of width and lanes), personally I don’t mind it as it leaves a lot of room when driving, but I will not dispute that the walking experience is unpleasant.
A note in the personal injury billboards, you do find them everywhere but they are particularly prevalent in Nevada because unfortunately, liability claim amounts are not capped here. There is a massive incentive to be overly-litigious, especially when insurance would rather just settle the claims than fight them in court. I’m originally from Hawaii though where billboards are banned, and I wish that was done everywhere, they are just such an eyesore and honestly a terribly way to advertise in the first place.
Didn't know that about the particulars on liability claims. Thanks!
Amazing and fascinating conclusion, “so much of this is about vicious cycles and virtuous cycles" it's exactly about that!
Great video anyway!
What happens if you put a light rail system down the middle of a stroad and then bike lanes on either side adjacent to sidewalks? It seems like that would help pedestrianize the stroad.
If you mean cut 8 lanes to 4 lanes and add those things, sure. But you might need to accomplish that via decades of other incremental changes. Like more streets, more transit, etc.
I for one hate street level light rail in the middle of stroads. It’s very inconvenient for pedestrians and causes an excessive amount of car/train/ped conflict. Unfortunately placing the rail elsewhere is difficult unless it goes into abandoned freight rail right-of-ways like they mostly did in Denver.
I liked this before the personal injury indicator species and now I wish I could like this again.
I'd be interested in an entire video on the topic of intersection design. Bonus points if it touches on the concept of a "Michigan left".
Hello from New Zealand. There are lessons here for our cities. Thank you
"The point is it's very telling that the price of billboard advertising space on these crash-prone facilities appears to bid up by an industry that makes more money when there are more crashes."
Someone call an ambulance, I'm dying.
OK, but call one of those lawyers first
That thing of the bus carrying the bycicles was just so genius. And it comes from Las Vegas. I want it in the entire world right now. I am absolutely amazed
Normally when I watch urban planning videos about the US, I try to use them as a lense to analyse and critisize the place where I live and not be the guy laughing "haha cities in the US are sooo bad, glad I live in Europe". But this is just too absurd, too terrible, too different from anything I know so I can't help it. I'm glad I don't have to live there.
I know what you mean. The USA has some beautiful scenery, and different climates. However it's lack of infrastructure and its many serious problems are a turnoff.
The sarcasm here is so well done
Unless you change the housing density issue, the other changes to get rid of stroads is futile. The natural progression of suburbs to dense cities was artificially arrested by 1950s philosophy zoning. Suburbs always existed, but property value increased as access to the city became more demanded, & suburbs organically became part of the city. But zoning keeps aging suburban property owners from expanding their property into multi unit properties of multiple stories.
I've watched a few of your videos. The dry humor in this one was NEXT LEVEL.
At least in the Phoenix area, a great stroad indicator is 5-over-1 apartment blocks. We've done the standard thing w/ these buildings: outside the downtown core, the only places where density is permitted by zoning are along the arterial streets, which are all stroads. I've lived in one of these for 5.5 years and I'm still not used to the surreal feeling of contradiction.
What's most maddening is the difference in age among these apartments. The older ones are dramatically over-parked, which is strange in its own way. But the newer ones are being built intentionally under-parked b/c developers have caught on that lots of apartment dwellers don't own cars. That winds up accumulating huge numbers of people who get places by ridehailing, cycling, scootering, riding transit, & walking. One could easily design the street to accommodate all of those different user modes (maybe not ridehailing), but there's no incentive to do so by the city government. So all these hundreds of people living in a given apartment building all get forced into the totally inadequate sidewalk gutters, until they just get jam-packed with conflicting users.
It is truly maddening.
That's super interesting (and of course maddening). You can find some form of this dynamic playing out in every city -- we remove parking requirements, which is great, but we don't introduce other requirements that improve adjacent transportation facilities. A lot of this comes back to ITE trip generation and parking generation manuals, which are "how things have been done" (professional inertia) and are explicitly motor-vehicle based methodologies, and how they're used in development review -- and the relative lack of similar tools for ensuring "concurrency" of active transportation / light transportation facilities.
Love your comments and insight as always -- thanks.
@@CityNerd oh it's even worse than that: the City gov't refuses to remove parking minimums even though staff keeps telling them we need to implement a parking maximum, & it's the developers themselves asking for exemptions from parking minimums, & the development review commission just keeps rubber-stamping those exemptions b/c they know we need more housing. It's absolutely wild.
I've watched about 10 videos of your channel and this is the best so far. Really really well done!
6:50 yay! Bikes on the front of a bus! No wonder, there's nowhere safe to actually cycle them. And how do you get a wheelchair down that obstructed sidewalk? A truly dreadful place to travel if you don't have a car. 😳
"I mean, if you don't have at least 7 signal heads on your mast arm, then what are you even doing?"....🤣
This video is a true masterpiece
Philly has a dangerous 'stroad' infamous for accidents at 2 of its intersections: Roosevelt Blvd. The intersection at Grant Avenue & another one at Red Lion Road made #2 and #3 nationwide worst intersections several years back according to State Farm. The Blvd is known to be a tough place to drive, with inside and outside sections that resemble mini highway exits when you try to exit the middle lanes to the outer lanes.
What I don't understand with so many stroads in US is : Why do they build the houses and businesses with the driveway to the stroad ?! Why ?!... In Holland you'll find Ring roads and 2x2/3x3 roads, but usually residential houses and business are built with their back towards the 'stroad' (bordered with bushes or a earth/concrete wall). You have to leave the stroad and enter a neighbourhood or a commercial/business park. And if there are houses/shops towards the road there will be , separated by a tree lined grass/hedge strip, low speed parallel street with driveways and parked cars (and useful for bikes too..).
Last year's US election night I had been watching (the totally non-explanatory crap on) Fux News. What astounded me was how much (incredibly agressive) ads there were. Mostly on cars, medication/insurance and legal services.... This video explains well how these are connected..😬....🙄
many of the houses were there prior to big development coming in. as for businesses... yeah i dont get that. usually you can access them in some way from an off street or parking lot though
foax news is an American Dante's inferno. since tv is going the way of the dodo, the lowest quality stuff goes there to die. also the lowest information and lowest iq person actually takes it seriously.
Your videos are a master class of sardonic delivery. Dry with just a touch of burning disgust for urban planning malpractice.
I was about to mention personal injury lawyer billboards when you asked for more examples.
I should have known.
it is an immense compliment to say either you have SuperfastMatt's style of humour or the other way round
Another great piece of content! Keep up the good work. I do have a question that hopefully makes it to a Q&A.
What advice do you have for a traffic engineer turned born-again urbanist who deals with single-occupant vehicles all day but wants to break through into more projects that prioritize bike/ped/transit infrastructure? Have I sealed my fate with my career choice?
Sardonic wit throughout on a topic that richly deserves it. Well done, sir! I very much enjoyed this video.
These vids are fun. Nobody really likes Stroads, but we keep building them. I’d really love a video on a realistic plan to get rid of them. How do you do the transition? If your plan includes getting more people to use alternative transportation by force, it’s likely a fail. Build it and they will come (you better have parking because they are coming by car! We could raise the gas tax to actually pay the cost of car infrastructure, but nooooo, that would be unfaaaaaaair.
So, twenty years from now, we will still be getting Stroad videos.
This is the perfect balance of snark and sarcasm I’ve been waiting for!
My least favourite part of visiting The US is those massive signs, very thankful we don't have those in Canada. Also thankful we don't have a culture of suing, we don't really have those lawyer billboards either.
If you have universal health care then you don't need to hire lawyers to fight over who has to pay the medical bills.
It depends on the state. They have a lot of them in the midwest, but in the SF Bay Area, for example, they're banned. Like on the 280 freeway, there are no billboards at all. But agreed, America is the land of the lawsuit. And anti-abortion billboards right beside adult porn superstores....
In Germany they also do not exist. Damages (pain and suffering) are much lower and there is universal healthcare and minimum amount insured is high.
You see them in Edmonton sometimes lol
hell is real
I personally would love a solutions video!!!! How do we fix this? Also the dry humor here was more satisfying than the office 👌
This video was beyond brilliant. Thank you for this!
I came from a small town to a small city and my first time driving on a stroad I accidentally turned too sharply onto opposite direction of traffic on a divided road. That was terrifying but luckily I was able to quickly u turn to the correct direction of travel.
Considering the asininity of it all, if I hadn't had to deal with stroads my entire life, I wouldn't believe such an environment could exist, let alone be considered a normal approach to building a living environment.
"stroad on stroad violence" haha I love your deadpan humor
Surprised you didn't rant about the lack of a subway from McCarran airport (now Harry Reid) directly down the strip with stations at all the casinos. That would eliminate 90% of the traffic from the airport to the strip and on the strip itself. And each casino could pay for its own station. It's a totally logical move that will never ever happen because....car and taxi/limo lobby. Ugh. They'd rather build pedestrian overpasses. And don't get me started on the useless monorail off the strip which COULD HAVE been on the strip. But nooooo.
I thought rideshare companies was killing those lobbies.
@@pureessenceofgaming1745 No - I just talked to an Uber driver there and the limo/tour bus and taxi associations are even more powerful than the casinos, apparently!
I love the snarkyness delivered in such a wholesome way!
Ah yes the stroad... Which is seemingly the only type of road in my city. Yet we are ranked among the best cities to live in in the entire US somehow
Wow! Which city?
I watched STROADS from Not Just Bikes ages ago (the algorithm failed to point me to you) … in Toronto (you are so excited to get ANOTHER Toronto comment from me) *EVERYTHING* north of Eglinton, west of Jane or east of Leslie [*] is a STROAD. The "original city" (broadly defined as INSIDE the Waterfront-Jane-Eglinton-Victoria Park borders) are the inner suburbs: Scarborough in particular, North York and Etobicoke notably secondarily as they are older; of the City of Toronto. Some more egregious than others, but bless my soul, I have never seen [in Canada] SEVEN lanes in one direction on a "street" featuring multiple DEDICATED lanes to LEFT and RIGHT turns!
Solutions video would be interesting. Id like to know what are some realistic changes we can start with, because obviously we cant get rid of all stroads over night :(
A basic step 1 is sometimes called a "diet road" which basically just means take a 4 lane stroad (2 each way) and reduce it to 1 each way + center turning lane (aka sucide lane). This is proven safer than a 4 lane stroad. As a bonus you get to remove 1 lane worth of width from the road for whatever you want including just buffer space as shoulder between the old danger sidewalk and the new white line. (Crappy painted bike gutter anyone?)
As for any stroad with over 4 lanes total just find a way to steal lanes back from the cars for any other purpose like dedicated bus & service vehicles, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, ect.
Part of the problem is that the immediate off ramp of every highway is always a stroad, sometimes its the genuine middle of nowhere which is honestly better.