The Struggle of Stroads in Sydney
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Stroads are a tragic combination of streets, which are designed around "places" with purely the pedestrian in mind, and roads, which are designed for the purpose of getting vehicles from A to B. Stroads have completely overrun Sydney, ruining town centres all across the city. Victoria Road through West Ryde is one of the most egregious examples, and it's the road that I will be exploring the most in this video. But not all hope is lost, for time and again Sydney has fixed its stroads, turning them into beautiful streets. This is the struggle of stroads in Sydney, and just how we could fix it.
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Links:
Not Just Bikes' video on Stroads: • Stroads are Ugly, Expe...
An article that delves into trip suppression and the effects of road traffic on communities: www.sciencedir...
The Metropolis of Three Cities plan that reveals the government's keen desire to avoid constructing future stroads: www.greatercit...
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![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
Sydney is like a sandwich, you have a first world country at the top, parramatta road, and a first world country beneath
So each part is different depending which side you were brought up
That's Victoria Rd at the start btw.
Honestly couldnt have said this better.
First world country that was built on loot and stolen generations by European reject convicts
I'm from Melbourne what makes Parramatta Road so bad? The middle eastern folks?
There you go never knew the difference between a street and a road! Learnt something new today! As always great vid!
As a Rhodes local, you can't honestly say this is a well planned suburb when overdevelopment and crowding is so apparent. But I guess that's a different topic for another time.
It's better than it used to be back when I grew up lol.
My office sits along this part of Victoria Road West Ryde and somehow you managed to miss us in every angle! All of your comments are very true bar about Pizza Hut, there is a food preparation company running in there now. It’s very hard for a business that requires foot traffic and walk in’s to operate along this strip. Parking is difficult due to the clear ways and the footpaths are unloved and run down. Sadly there’s no way to change as so many motorist rely on the road to get East and West everyday
Funny note about the 99 bikes franchise (5:07), pretty much every stroad you mentioned has a store along it! It seems this business must thrive off being seen
this is an interstate phenomenon too! in brisbane’s many stroads, there’s almost a guarantee to have a 99 bikes store on it
probably irate commuters seeing a bike store and thinking to themself "it'd be faster riding a bike in this 4:30pm traffic"
Does Sydney have a car addiction?
Yes
Does Sydney have suburbs with problematic stroads?
Yes
However, the first two examples you posted are extremely poor...
The main shopping district for West Ryde is away from Victoria Rd although it pushes right up to it (as does Eastwood which has businesses that spill over onto First Ave... do you consider than a stroad?).
The bike store you mentioned, you can ride your bike onto the Paramatta Valley Cycleway without crossing Victoria Rd or going onto anything other than quiet roads. Most of the stores are on the other side of the Victoria Rd where the train station is.
On the side with the bike store, all the stores line up on Victoria Rd, immediately away from the road are high density apartments. i.e. there is only a small slither of stores on that stretch of Victoria Rd most of which serve local residents. I would argue Victoria Rd is very much a road and not a stroad. It's primary job is to get cars from Ryde to the CBD.
Similiarly, Beecroft Rd at Epping is definitely a road and not a stroad. One side is the train tracks and no one in their right mind walks on that side, and the other side has a shopping district where most of the business happens. You can argue there's shops on the other side of the station and that there's a 2nd adjacent shopping district, but the argument for Beecroft Rd being a stroad falls flat as pedestrians almost never cross the road where the shopping district is (as you mentioned there is an overpass which you NEED to take to get over the train line). There is virtually no interaction with pedestrians and Beecroft Rd until you reach the Blaxland Rd intersection (after which the road changes names to Epping Rd).
Something I would consider important to be classified as a stroad is that the stroad not only serves to be a thorough fare, but has major 'attractions' like malls/strip malls directly on along stroad and driving is the only option to get to those places. The first two examples you had have pretty high populations density with high rises and literally next to train station. Yes, there are cars on these roads, but these roads don't contribute significantly to local traffic (locals may use Becroft or Victoria Rd to get to work, but outsiders rarely visit these locations) and frequently local traffic is quite segregated from the actual road. There are few stores that provide strip mall like parking that would increase the amount of pedestrian/vehicle interactions.
They are certainly not the major local shopping districts like Macquarie, Rhodes, Top Ryde or even Paramatta and Chatswood. Actually, there's a stronger argument to make for the roads immediately surrounding these suburbs being labeled as stroads... particularly Top Ryde which is the only one that doesn't have a train station right next to it, although that has to do with the mixing of thoroughfare and local traffic causing road hazards rather than pedestrian-vehicle interactions.
If you want to see examples of stroads, you should have stuck with the Hill's district (although I didn't realise Castle Hill had improved so much recently...), Western suburbs and other areas where they have Mc Mansions going up like crazy. There is a strong corellation with lower population densities and low public transport options with stroads.
as people who lived at rhodes for more than 5 years, rhodes feels more like an asian suburb, the layout just like some place in shanghai or tokyo, not how building looks like, just how compact, and generally energetic in a way
Sadly alot of people don't realise this...having come back from Seoul, Osaka, and Tokyo...people walk around...there is always something happening.
It made me wonder...if so many people in Sydney are worried about turning our suburbs into high density urban jungles often associated with HK...why don't those people leave Sydney...a city...for the country? A city by its design should be dense...should be packed with life and alot of things going on.
It doesn't fundamentally make sense that Sydney is a city but people want it to look like a country town.
Unfortunately, the City of Sydney is about to give approval to yet another stroad. William Street is under attack with a massive development which will increase traffic on an already congested road
Beecroft Rd is absolutely awful. It's so weird because the majority of the lanes don't seem to be used by cars. They could easily reclaim one lane and add some planters and wider footpaths to make it much more pleasant.
The one thing they all have in common is that they are all major arterial roads, the result of nearly a century of prioritising car traffic. The city wouldn't work without them, so love them or hate them, they are a necessary part of the infrastructure in a city the size of Sydney. Plus, you didn't mention the effect of malls on street shopping, which is a huge oversight.
George street was always bustling. It did not need any upgrades. It has created chaos for the rest of the public transport network. I am a bus to train daily commuter and it is a nightmare
Why doesn't the NSW Government listen to this? It is not only Sydney, Newcastle is also a stroad nightmare. To get rid of stroads would at very least improve properties values where this problem exists.
Love your work, always watching it
The main problem is no parking and mega shopping malls.
We have a real massive stroad in Auckland, NZ that only became a stroad in recent times. Before they built the motorway is was mostly farmland, but after the motorway was built it became the main access between the town center and the motorway. Gradually development has spread along both sides of this road, and it has become the fast food capital.
It was always bound to happen due to how busy a road this was, so they should have planned the developments more and have them bunch together with all their carparks inward facing to each other and coming off a traffic light intersection.
I seriously doubt that the "speed hump" you showed at 12:07 doubles as a pedestrian crossing especially when it has been fenced off on both sides to help stop people using it as such AND that cars are allowed to park on top of them.
They need a tunnel under Newtown. Driving through there is awful, people just walk out in front of your car trying to see if they can hit it and all I'm doing is trying to get to Paramatta road. They need some sort of bypass under it
please do a vid on the M2, its protestors destroying equipment/ chaining themselves to trees, and then it being undersized, (and the hated speed camera before the entry to the tunnel.) please keep up the history of roads and their dismal failures. (parramatta road comes to mind also)
The rule is striation rather than smudging.
Do not make the street and road one
Alternate streets and roads. Give them their own spaces. Striate them and link them sensibly.
The biggest problem with Australia is this insane desire to copy everything from the failure that is America. All these examples you state are exactly the reasons why I never visit any business in these areas other than simply driving through them
Stroads in areas like West Ryde can be fixed if Ryde Council were more open to higher density mixed use developments which would enable retail precincts to flourish away from the main road (ie Victoria Rd). It would only be viable and possible though with the aforementioned move towards higher density and a master plan to redesign the two main blocks on Vic Rd in-towards the Coles & Woolworths at the back.
Same can be said for long stretches of Parramatta Rd from
Broadway to Petersham if medium to high density mixed use developments were tied in with great pedestrian centric master planning. And to take it to the next level complement it with a light rail on Parramatta Rd or a metro line underneath.
Great stuff, in Wollongong I always wondered why so many vacant storefronts, stroads seem to be the culprit.
Please do a video about the infamous DFO roundabout LOL
There are still ways to fix a stroad. Beverly Hills for example at night time is still bustling with restaurants etc. but it is the only one.
Do one on Melbourne?
Parramatta road would have less traffic if the tunnel that was designed to replace it was toll-free so people were incentivised to use them
Wrong. People need to be incentivised NOT to use them.
Sydney urgently needs a London-style congestion charge
Traffic is the Michael Myers to the stroad's Laurie Stroad.
9:50 yes because who wouldn’t want to get the bus to pickup a new couch.
George street trams could have been done with buses really. Without needing to close down a main through fare. Eliminated parking for these businesses that rely on deliveries to operate.
Cars are still important. Eliminating streets just puts pressure on smaller streets.
Unfortunately Victoria rd is a main artery into the city, only exacerbated by a hefty toll on the harbour bridge and tunnel.
Only a bypass tunnel can fix vic rd, which of course would also come with a toll.
Sydney, one of the highest tolled cities in the world ..
it might happen in another 50 years. rozelle is getting this treatment as we speak with victoria road being diverted into a tunnel between the iron cove bridge and anzac bridge. should revitalise that area a bit, but west ryde is a lot further up the chain.
With more education for the general public like this video, I hope the next time a council or even NSW Government comes up with a good planning idea, more people would embrace it.
I am embarrassed to say that I hated the changes made to George St in the city as that was how I used to drive in the city. Knowing what I know now, I would have supported it from day one.
Yet realestate prices in Sydney are exhortbitant. One day the majority will get it.
I live not far away from the West Ryde area you showed. Agree its horrible but unfortunately Victoria Rd (or Stroad...) is the main artery from the west to the city and there's not alternative to reroute traffic. I dont know why a train line between Parramata and the CBD VIA Victoria Rd is not considered given it traverses so many residential areas that would benefit from fewer cars. cheers
Most of the stroad around Sydney are old tram roads. They exist across Sydney. Even famous Oxford street is a Stroad
Good point. Transport and access mixed well when the transport was a tram. The problem only arises when you introduce cars. It will be interesting to see if light rail actually does bring some life back to Kensington.
I lived in west ryde for several years and nothing survives Victoria road
Wow wow wow ….finally someone commenting on the poor city planning mess that is Sydney and it’s inner city suburbs. I am a tradesmen that travels Sydney all the time, you can see so many examples of bad planning throughout the city. I put it down to corruption in the councils, just my 2 cents.
Great Video! Keep up the good work! It would be great to see a comparison between australian and american citys from an (new) Urbanism perspective
I grew up in West Ryde and owned a business along Victoria Rd. Our Council doesn’t care about West Ryde otherwise it would change the zone like Drummoyne and Gladesville which is in the same Council.
Drummoyne doesn’t share the same council as West Ryde.
@@josephj6521 sorry your right. But Gladesville does and that has all been zoned high rise on Victoria Rd
@@freespeech2870 high rise on a stroad? This city is getting worse. At least build a tunnel, turn Victoria Rd into a beautiful boulevard then build apartments. I cannot think of anything worse than living, shopping and eating at a stroad.
@@josephj6521 A boulevard LOL this council has no vision. They gave the developer a massive uplift of units on top of coles for putting in a coles as it was giving to the community. They put in bus lanes and forced 30% of cars Into the backstreets. They have no idea about the real world.
@@freespeech2870 yes it’s unfortunate. It’s also unfortunate that no council or government has any true love for this city. It can be so much better but they don’t care unless they receive funds in paper bags.
Forcing cars into Sydney’s backstreets via tolls, bus lanes without alternatives, etc is too common in this city. I’m sick of our once quiet suburban streets turning into mini-highways. Dangerous and unnecessary.
6:57 Pizza huts quality (especially in comparison to dominoes) is location based. in Canberra pizza hut solos dominoes in quality in the belconnen area without question.
but also ig why not get better pizza lol
There are slow roads, fast roads and high speed roads. Slow roads are better for business. the problem is when you need to build a faster roads due to residential area and work area commuting. Banning cars, adding something on the road to slow it down that has to be a commuting road won't solve both problems of business friendly roads and faster commuting between 2 major areas.
1 idea is to make a cul de sac for business from the main artery aka side road. Something like Japanese shoten gai that is connected to the main faster road but not passed by cars directly. Because businesses also need easy access of logistics. Then parking space should be vertical near that area. Win win solution
Please fixed the Princess Highway stroad from Rockdale to Kogarah. There is a big potential streets there wasted by busy noisy car road.
Many suburbs in the US and Canada would rightly consider themselves lucky to have that kind of stroad running through them. Yes, it's badly designed and it inappropriately prioritises speed and throughput of motor vehicles over the quality of the environment for pedestrians. Yes it fails to cater for cyclists.
But it's of a human scale. It's not hazardous to walk on because the shops don't have car parks and so cars aren't constantly turning across the pavement at inappropriately high speeds because they just saw a sign for a free upgrade to chilli cheese fries with their Wendy's meal. You may have to wait a long time at the crossing, but at least there is a crossing. And what's that at 6:10? A bus! Followed by another bus at 6:19. That's an hour's worth of bus service on many stroads in North America - if they have bus service at all.
what do you thiink about bondi junction
Parramatta Road in its entirety is pretty much a Stroad, a lot of dead businesses line up quite a fair distance of the road itself, especially driving between Ashfield all the way up to Camperdown.
Fun Fact: half the businesses on Parramatta Road itself are actually fronts for Online Businesses just so that they have a legal business address on the cheap (apparently $300-400 a week)
There was a plan for a tram line up the middle. Any idea what happened to that idea?
from memory it was dismissed as being too close to the existing train lines, and would service theoretical small businesses that don't exist in empty buildings most of which are not long for this world, as the owners await offers from developers for something that can exist along a stroad. all the suburbs OFF parramatta road have their main shops (most of which are thriving) on smaller side roads - so business along p-road seemed not only unrealistic but kind of a bad idea.
@@karlcx Aha, right. That does make sense. What a doomed road! Maybe widescale rezoning might help, like Free Speech mentioned with Drummoyne
i remember decades ago i use to shop along parramatta rd it was full of great shops use to love walking along that road at city end. it all died as the traffic rumped up as the years went on
They’re building a new heavy rail line along (under & near) it at the moment from Parramatta to Hunter street in the CBD
This channel has a great future! Hope you make a difference to Sydney’s city planning.
Thank you!!
Hoping!
Would just like to add that a lot of stroads including in Sydney used to have trams on them and they were removed to make way for more cars. That was one of the biggest mistakes in city planning history and I hope they seriously consider bringing back more of them. Its alreading improving Kingsford and Kensington and could help around west Ryde abd Epping too.
Exactly what I was going to say.
VOTE in LOCAL ELECTIONS & get your friends to, for Livable Citites.
20th century car worship has ruined Sydney.
Agree, huge mistake
Hobart/nipaluna too, with the 2nd-biggest double-decker tram network around
...yet somehow with 5x more people since then we can only support the most expensive form of transport (cars) in the poorest capital
A number of stroads serve as free alternatives to nearby toll roads, the state government can build all the new motorways they want to try to take traffic off them but the impact will be minimal given the toll cost burden.
So true. It's been the same mistake made over and over again, by successive NSW governments, for the last 40 years - outsource the building of a section of motorway and let the builder run it as a toll road. Never mind that it effectively defeats the purpose of building the motorway in the first place.
The new northconnex is awesome but it is dear.
Fellow sydneysider here. Sydney's biggest issue is that it was never a planned city. Things just "grew" from the day the first convicts arrived. And many, not all, but many politicians only ever had short-term, band-aid solutions, especially in more recent times. So while these roads and environments probably worked and made sense several decades ago when there was way less congestion and things weren't so fast paced, Sydney is now just bursting at the seams with people, traffic, cargo, etc. Pretty much all of our major infrastructure was never designed to cope with the load we're putting on it - it's something of a miracle that things function at all.
Also, I find Sydney is very "hilly" (just look at google map satellite view at the terrain outside of Sydney Metro, its' very "veiny"), which I think also limits a more "planned" concept of straight roads and things being arranged more grid-like.
Honestly, Australia probably needs to be more like the US, grow out into newer cities, rather than everyone and everything all wanting to be in one of only a few eastern seaboard cities. We're too big for what we have, but too small to make expansion worthwhile - we kinda need something to nudge us forward in that sense.
Also: "People buy things, not cars" ... Mate, cars are always in your wallet for one reason or another 🤣
Just stumbled on your channel today! I'm so grateful you have started this much needed conversation in Australia. Wishing your channel the best, I'll follow your work closely!
yup this is my first time on this channel and am NOT from down under but enjoyed seeing "the good fight"
all the same "story" in Canada
I used to visit Epping, West Ryde, and Carlingford a lot more. Just hasn't been attractive to go to these places for a decade with higher traffic but also insufficient parking at the same time. They built up the population with the promise of infrastructure upgrades to come later. They expanded the roads a bit at the cost of everything else, then forgot all the rest of the upgrades.
Probably should have noted the history of roads like Parramatta Rd more. This is one of the oldest roads in the country. It was the high street to many of the suburbs that it passed through. There were trams running along parts of it for may years. It had a very different life before the post war car boom turned it into a critical arterial thoroughfare . Now there is westconnex it would be interesting for you to discuss some of the revitalisation planning that is going on for Parramatta Rd
I really like your videos but if I could offer a suggestion it would be cool if you dived a bit deeper into financially how much it costs to invest in overhauling and improvement and the increase in revenue to government as well as businesses after the overhaul is complete.
Fantastic video as always! I drive along Parramatta Rd fairly frequently, and it doesn’t just suck for pedestrians, it sucks for drivers too! It is always incredibly congested, but even when it isn’t too busy you’re still having to stop and start all the time for all the intersections and crossings. It’s also just unpleasant to drive along- the buildings surrounding it are often quite run down as you said, and the road itself isn’t in great condition. I only drive along it because I’m physically disabled and therefore often can’t use public transport due to chronic pain, and the toll roads which are much nicer to drive along are way too expensive to use regularly. If the public transport options were more accessible or if the nicer roads weren’t prohibitively expensive then I definitely would not drive along it anymore.
Agreed; Parramatta Road sucks. There’s been much talk of renewal along the corridor but no action as of yet!
The benefits of good urban design are all-round, yep!
Good urban design means accessibility, and there's a reason the Netherlands has the happiest drivers (eg less stress, more efficiency, fewer unnecessary car trips)
@@BuildingBeautifully I live on one of these main Stroads. I think the government should just buy all the houses and businesses on both Parramatta Road and Victoria Road... And turn them into proper limited access roads with noise barriers on both sides.
@@betula2137I hate it when people use the Netherlands or any other European county as a good urban example. Since WWII most European countries including the Netherlands have barely grown. Meanwhile, Australia in that same time frame has more than tripled in population. It is still common to see mothers driving a van with kids. Australia is still a country where young 22 year old parents have two kids and nobody makes them feel guilty.
@@bena8121 So NL has grown about 2x since WW2 while Australia has 3.4x.
I am not entirely sure what point you're making here (is it about demographics?), but it's a bit different to the subject which is in focus (namely transport design); the important thing is that people are happy.
Frankly, it makes sense that Australia grows more, as we do have a lot of potential and land; there is a perception that we don't due to American Euclidean zoning practices, which is another topic.
as you point out, the stroads are largely historical. Many harking back to earlier times of horse and buggy or tram. London is a more extreme. Small rural villages and towns gradually absorbed into the urban sprawl over hundreds of years, the quiet country lanes ultimately becoming through stroads
i think what is rarely ever mentioned is the effect stroads have on drivers, and one of the most frustrating things about sydney's stroads (at least from the perspective of someone who's interested in the car scene) is the fact that 80% of the time, the most well known stroads do not have non-bus alternatives in terms of public transport, or at least havent for years until now, making this huge pressure and expectation for kids to get their driver's licenses as early as possible, which ends up creating this awful system where kids to have to buy their own cars, as their parents need to use their cars for work, so you end up with a bunch of kids with used (and most likely beaten up, unsafe, and unprotected) cars, which lock them into spending a huge amount of money just to live in their area, which just ends up feeding into needing more car infrastructure and creating worse drivers who end up poorer for no reason besides location.
i went to school in the inner west, and my friends who lived in drummoyne who attempted cycling around would just come into school with gashes from where cars hit them and then drove off, meaning they tried to get their licenses as soon as possible, and man, the width, lack of speed cameras and lack of pedestrians on half the stroads you mentioned do not mix well with teenage drivers (speaking from experience, i know three people who broke their cars on the anzac bridge, and my first crash ever was getting t-boned turning onto victoria road)
very good video though, earned a subscriber.
If all that this channel ever achieves to be is 'Not Just Roads' for Greater Sydney, you will be still doing the Lord's work. I used to think the problem with Sydney was simply just "not enough trams and cycleways", and while that is part of the problem, the problem certainly is far greater than that, though the solutions are reasonably easy.
honestly feels like Sydney has a whole lot of the USA's problem, where so much of the city was built or has been ripped out & paved over for more motor vehicle traffic, that it'll take far more money & political will to change anything. Where repurposing existing road surfaces is the path of least resistance, but also feels like such a messy patchwork bandaid solution.
People will often only seriously consider alternatives to driving when the mode of transport is made seamless - adapting existing infrastructure council-area by council-area results in travel being anything but seamless.
The rising if stroads is all down to real estate advertising: They lure businesses in with the promise of "Prominent Positioning" or "Main road access". But of course, its unsustainable; because of traffic congestion, making access almost impossible.
If ur a Carlo local why get pizza hut or dominos when u have the amazing restaurant and pizza shop that is Taste of Tuscany !
You could do a whole series on Gosford and the Central Coast. The town centre and waterfront are in dire need for planning that takes advantage of the areas natural beauty. You could just about call Mann street a 2 lane stroad, a thoroughfare for traffic to Wyoming. There are also many other issues that can gridlock the main roads to Gosford in cases of accidents and flooding.
I recently.moved.back to Gosford after spending a couple of years having a trily amazing time walking North Sydney and surrounding areas. Gosford waterfront and the highway ground through it make.me.sad
Great video and long time subscriber of your channel. You picked a great spot..... My family and I live on Victoria Rd at West Ryde and I dare not allow my 6 year daughter to walk to school solo.
Although right now, we're living in our other home of Fukuoka, Japan. It's a much longer walk to school, through many more streets, and heck it's even snowing this morning. But it's significantly safer to walk to school, so Japanese kids will generally (including my daughter), just walk to school unaided.
It's helped by the fact that generally cars travel at 30km/h around our area with high speed areas being 40km/h. When a road like Victoria Rd exists in Japan, it's usually reserved purely for cars and if it was 70km/h (which part of Victoria Rd at West Ryde is), it does not have pedestrian access.
Japan knows that if pedestrians and cars are mixed, that speeds must be pedestrian friendly.
I love being a pedestrian in Castle Hill. Moved into the area mid 1990’s and love the transformation we have today.
It truly has changed so much, I really like it now!
The changes are worthwhile, but the high rises are pretty disgusting to look at. Visual pollution.
Seen any zombies
@@MitchellBPYao not lately no
Even though the Castle Hill metro is useful, I did miss the park you guys had across the road from Castle Towers. I used to eat lunch there everyday when I worked retail in the Towers in the 00's. The absent green is very noticeable.
Great video mate! Stroads truly are atrocious. As someone who lives a spits throw from Parramatta road in Camperdown, I wish something could be done about it here like in Castle Hill (another great vid btw).
one correction though: the 'pedestrian crossing/speed bump' you showed in Rhodes isn't actually a pedestrian crossing (hence the fences to discourage crossing at that point). Wouldn't want to encourage your viewers to jaywalk 😉
Great video! Your video reminds me of all the days I use to go to a shop on Victoria Road, West Ryde, (Tom’s Hobbies), and it’s entrance was on the other side of the building on Graf Avenue, as the Victoria Road side entrance was just simply inaccessible to parking.
I miss Pizza Hut, especially thieir dine-in buffets. I my mind, it's still the best 🙃
It's about time Australia got some RUclips stroad love.
My family has lived in Eastwood for 50 years. The analysis is interesting, but could go deeper. The public school on Rowe Street has always anchored. Yet access and support of the school was always difficult.
This end of Rowe street had amazing period retail offers. All of course have long since vanished.
The demolition of the cinema and replacement by Eastwood Centre has been both short term benefit (with its anchors and parking) yet long term weakness as it can't compete with the malls, anchors failing, dead mall persisting.
The Eastwood pedestrian mall creation (closing of Rowe Street) did kill businesses. The model of use change didn't adapt.
Rutledge street has always suffered from high traffic loads but feed Rowe Street activities. The rail line construction cut Rowe Street but never Rutledge Street.
The rail line never created easy safe connectivity between the two commercial parts of Rowe Street.
The one element of change that secured Eastwood as a suburban urban place was substantial demographics change that could adapt to its strengths and weaknesses.
Eastwood is far more complex than Rowe Street pedestrian plaza. It's changed character, the completely changed commercial and retail offers and its current amenity are I believe a result of a series of patchwork fixes, not planned. Accidental. Interesting video. Many thanks
You ignored the reason that Eastwood has changed.
What is now considered to be “greater Sydney” grew out of smaller villages/ distant suburbs that eventually merged or grew together. What were once unsealed streets for horses and carts eventually carried trams and much much lighter volumes of traffic. The car was unaffordable for but a few. I cannot “go back in time and enter the minds of road engineers nor city planners” but I doubt few could have imagined the rapid rate at which car numbers grew. What once were streets had shopfronts downstairs and the owners living upstairs. People lived locally and children walked to school. Many of theses streets were widened, pavements and grassy verges were stripped or narrowed, and the ghastly “through roads” ensued. Post WW2 migration and growth along with the era of cheap oil resulted in the likes of Sydney, Auckland, Adelaide, Christchurch, Wellington removing most if not all tram lines. In my opinion, there are too few visionaries left, and often, those that dared raise their voices were “silenced” or ridiculed…
Dude ikr, reminds me of specifically Hobart now that you mention this. We had the first complete electric tramway in the southern hemisphere, with an insane amount of coverage. It was a massive point of pride for the City of Hobart, and it was seen as essential as it gave the right of easy mobility to the impoverished. We also made huge technological feats and innovated the design of rail in general. Things like AC-DC switching on rolling stock, which enabled the same power systems to be used for both household electricity and all rail lines, which made electrified rail dramatically more viable globally.
As a result, it was nationalised twice (changing hands between the Hobart City Council and the state government) and was heavily maintained to ensure this right was as free for everyone as possible.
But from about the 30-50s, wealthy wankers in Sandy Bay started to complain, bc "trams were getting in the way of the cars", and lines began being torn up in that suburb, inching into others as time went on.
This came to a head in the late 50s-early 60s when a tram driver was killed after a speeding motorist slammed into his tram and severed a brake line. Of course, being the mid-century, trams were blamed for the accident. Poor maintainance of the trams over the prior decade definitely contributed to this, and this was due to a complete disinterest in the medium.
Now Hobart has gone from having one of the best public transit systems on earth, to easily the worst public transit system of any major city in the country, perhaps even the southern hemisphere.
Now the state government (*Cough* Michael Ferguson *Cough*) has an agenda towards privatising what little public transit we have to the bus service provider Kinetic, which has led to deliberate neglect and mismanagement that is destroying Metro bus services and the conditions of drivers.
Add to that the complete drought of public housing in Hobart, a disgusting degree of urban sprawl, a complete lack of regulation surrounding housing and property development, and protest by those same wealthy Sandy Bay wankers who leverage their financial impact to sabotage sustainable development. Hobart is doomed to be a city of stroads.
You miss the point Sydney lost all its trams due to lobbying by the oil companies
The Asquith government one of the most corrupt governments NSW ever had was going to try and shut down the railway in Sydney again due to lobbying by oil companies
Fortunately for everybody Neville Wran got in
The government promised that when Westconnex was built, Parramatta Road in the Inner West and King Street in Newtown would become paradise for pedestrians. This hasn't happended. Were they lying?
I disagree with the arguments made in this video. I think stroads are not the issue, the issue is Council planning and the sudden change of town centre location. For example, Liverpool Road in Ashfield, Willoughby Road in Crows Nest, Barrenjoey Road in Newport, Sydney Road in Seaforth, Balgowlah and Fairlight, Hampden Road in Artarmon, and Military Road in Mosman, Neutral Bay and Cremorne etc. are all busy and full of pedestrians shopping/eating around. The successful names of these stroads can go on and on.
Accordingly, I don't think the failure of those stroads are the fault of them being stroads. There are many factors contributing to the failures you displayed in this video. For example, the over-building of large shopping centres and malls which destroyed small businesses; the lack of uniqueness and identity to a suburb; Councils shifted their planning focus away from stroads instead to building new town centres etc.
I lived in West Ryde for a year and there was simply no incentive for me to shop around Victoria Road because the centre of West Ryde is the mall between Market Street and Anthony Road. Ryde Council made Victoria Road isolated from the West Ryde town centre.
It is demonstrated that the failure of those stroads are all due to their respective Councils shifted the focus of planning away from the stroads to new town centres in different location isolated to the stroads; and the successful stroads are the ones which their respective Councils keep the focus of planning around them, building town centres upon the already booming stroads.
Stroads truly are the worst 😂Do you have any thoughts on king street through Newtown? Road traffic is terrible and parking is difficult, but stores seem to do well
King st is my favourite place in the city. I was just on a night out there. It's a damn shame it's being gentrified so rapidly though. I've been living around it my entire adult life but I'm getting the economic boot now
Hardcore bans on loud exhausts and subwoofers would go a long way to making these areas more appealing
Ewoo isn't exactly the best example though... The traffic through there at peak hour is horrendous and the locals not only have no idea how to use a pedestrian crossing but when they do get in a car, the round turny thing in front of them baffles most as well.'
The decline of these stores has occurred over the last few years and in some cases, with no change to the road outside. It's not the road that's the cause, it's people's shopping habits.
Its China
The one business that thrives on these stroads? The ol’ rub and tug. Victoria Rd in West Ryde, Pennant Hills Rd in both Carlingford and Thornleigh are prime examples.
Wow I never knew Castle Hill use to look like that! It's improoved so much now. Even showground road is amazing to drive on now!
I remember when I stayed in Brisbane, it was a short walk about 500m down to a stroad, but I would rather walk 2km through a park down to Chermside shopping centre.
Half the stores at the stroad was closed, or at least they looked that way, and the noise from the cars were deafening.
The only disadvantage of the park were the magpies, but I quickly found out which trees they attacked from and could avoid them.
i live in regional Victoria and its clear that the place i grew up and live was created in the idea of car transportation and what annoys me most is i can't drive on my own till I'm 18 in Victoria when i get my p's, so i'm having to sweat and ride my bike everywhere. i live 7.2km from the town Centre and its a 30 minute ride. the roads are not suitable for bike riders at all, rural roads with no gutters or footpaths, the best thing i have to rely on is a bike track that people have been riding instead of going on the road with cars going 80km flying right past me. it annoys me how the only thing the victorian government care about is Melbourne because theres community's like mine that are basically like every other australian regional town and i can't really go anywhere on my own efficiently until i'm 18. i'm inland so i don't have the beach anywhere close to me. its hard finding something to do as a youngster when local businesses are dyeing and i live far to far away to be a customer. i can hitch rides from family members and people i know willling to give me a ride but i hate having to rely on someone else.
Have you been in touch with your local council to let them know your views? Nothing will change if you don't act rather than talk.
You covered converting a stroad into a street, but not the other option of converting it into a road.
If the stroad is too important for through-traffic, it should probably be converted into a road instead.
In that case, maybe buy up the vacant business locations and remodel the buildings to swap their fronts and backs. Chances are the backs of the businesses open to a back alley that could become a smaller street with single-sided business locations, while what currently faces the stroad could just become a wall to be viewed by the cars. If they're back-to-back with businesses on the other side of the block, probably all you could do would be to merge the buildings and offer bigger spaces to rent out.
Thanks for another great video! As someone who lives very close to the Pacific Highway, it's bloody terrifying! It's completely impossible to talk on the phone on the highway! And where I live on the highway, there's no crossings for about 500m each way! And it's caused an enormous divide between the north (huge mcmansions and upper class), and the south (more middle class and suburban with minimal infrastructure for pedestrians). A few weeks ago when I was crossing the road to get to the station, somebody almost ran me over, and I didn't even realise until another pedestrian screamed at the driver! Often those little red markers get knocked off by cars, and often you don't know which side of the road you are! And if you wish to cycle, nice try! You'll get tooted at the enormous b-doubles all along the road that are avoiding the NorthConnex toll, and some even threaten to run you over! I also absolutely hate those fences, but as the curb is so low, that's literally the only way you can't get run over! And often big trucks crash and destroy the the fence all along the road!
I remember when I was little, I was basically BANNED from ever walking on the Pacific Highway, even with a guardian! That meant that even visiting neighbours and getting essential supplies meant it was ALWAYS by car! Adding to the already horrid congestion around Kur-ing-gai by people who acted the same as my parents!
And don't get me even started with William Street! All that it is, is a car park! It's also blimey terrifying! At least they have a sensible plan to fix up that area that's been delayed for the past 3 years to make it into TOD! Much better compared to the planned widening of the Pacific Highway there to 8 lanes, making the whole situation even worse with a few trees! More information is available here: www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Planning-and-development/Planning-policies-and-guidelines/Strategies-and-management-plans/Public-domain-plan ruclips.net/video/mANR7fsHlp0/видео.html
The current situation of Turramurra and the interesting and lame attempts to try and fix it up is probably a video in itself! If you wish to do that, please do contact me and I'd be happy to help!
EDIT: And also Pennant Hills Road used to be in a similar situation as well until the NorthConnex was built. But now that all the cars are gone and it doesn't need to be a road. They could very easily do what they did to Epping Road when the Lane Cove Tunnel was built! But no, no plans exist yet! That means that we got cars going 80/90km/h as bullets ready to slice anyone in half!
Because you were walking while texting, I guess its bound to happen, I got beeped thousands of times in kogarah during my school life so much I stopped
I just recently found your channel and find your posts and information really interesting especially because I lived in one of the suburbs in this video (it has changed so much just in a few years). Keep up your good and informative insights and plan away with the future of the area for the better!!
Thank you!!
I remember Eastwood back around 1970, a really nice Aussie suburb with great shops. Now Aussies number 1 in one hundred. It is a beautiful suburb for Chinese people.
My friend used to live on Victoria road in West Ryde exactly where you were filming and I was surprised with how many businesses were right next to his apartment. It's a shame to see all the businesses closing down. I used to live in Eastwood and walking down to the town centre was always so much easier than driving. I think it's a symptom of Sydney being such a geographically large city and people being forced to drive from the suburbs to commute.
Looking at the proposed master plan for West Ryde, the town centre is shifted to the block north of Victoria Road and on the west side of the train station. The Ryde LGA is recommending the shops on Victoria Road will merge to allow for bigger stores for gyms, big box stores, etc. and the entrance to the stores will be from the local streets. This does seem a good approach from the Ryde LGA.
You should address that most of these ‘stroads’ were built in the 19th Century as streets or thoroughfares. In that era, with horses, buggies, and trams, they were ideal high streets for commercial activity and thus fostered a sense of place and identity. As Sydney entered the auto age post WW2, traffic planners forced vehicular traffic though these same thoroughfares. Unlike the USA, we didn’t build peripheral freeways or ring roads to divert the massive amounts of suburban traffic that flowed into the city. Instead these thoroughfares were given over to more and more vehicular occupation. The usual road reserve width was 1 ‘chain’ (20.1m). This is ample room for footpaths, parking, room for market carts, a tram line etc.
But our traffic planners took all that away and squeezed 6 lanes of high speed traffic instead. That is why roads like Parramatta Rd are desolate, horrible places for pedestrians and commerce. They’re not ‘stroads’ in the typical North American sense. As they used to actually be high quality, activated commercial centres. They are zombie stroads. They have decaying (but often high quality) 19th Century building stock lining both sides. They weren’t built originally or intentionally a stroads. A new road like Bringelly Rd in Leppington is a North American style stroad. Parramatta Rd or Victoria Rd are once great high streets that used to be as active and bustling as any high street.
Look at Crown and Bourke Sts before the construction of the Eastern Distributor - they were 4 lane, one way zombie stroads with no parking that absolutely choked the surrounding areas. Now they are some of Sydney’s mode vibrant and inviting streets. Some historical reference imagery or old maps would be a great addition to this story.
Interesting! I hope you keep making these. On Not Just Bikes, he shows some very desirable suburbs that grew up around train stations and unfortunately in Sydney these are also the ones with the big roads through them. Turramurra, Gordon, Ashfield. In Sydney, we have some beautiful places that avoided this, by being on tramlines but offset from the main road (I'm thinking Lane Cove). Come walk around and see how the many little pedestrian malls link the main road to the new development area.
Some of the new designs, although much better seem soul-less. Rhodes, although better planned doesn't have that destination vibe. I'm not an expert but to me it seems like part of the problem is that the major developers are big shopping malls. So there isn't that organic charm that comes from lots of little businesses starting up one by one. Think of Hornsby - it has a stroad strip near the train station with all its problems such as empty premises. But still, the old part is a lot more charming than the new, pedestrian friendly part on the other side of the station that's dominated by Westfield. Now Chatswood doesn't really have a charming part any more, even though they've tried very hard by having market stalls and community events in the pedestrian mall. It's not a chill place to hang out. There's not really nice cafes to sit and watch the world go by. The problem is the two big shopping malls. Another example is Crows Nest - it's HIGHLY stroad damaged, but it's still a good destination suburb because there's the section offset from the Pacific Highway and most importantly NO big malls. I imagine these big companies provide a lot of the funding for new developments, but I'm convinced it needs addressing. I think it's important to scrap the car dependency and head outside again for our shopping. Shady, tree lined and taking advantage of our beautiful weather. If the shops must be stacked on top of each other, this can still be done but not with the USA model anymore. Malls, not just roads have killed our communities.
I find it so weird that the GIGANTIC* Video Ezy that used to be on the corner of Victoria Rd there when I was a kid is now some weird Vitamin King shop...
(* = it might not have been that big, I was 4 when we went there and well yeah I'm 37 now...)
Victoria road and many of the other areas of Sydney that you have mentioned are primed for re-development. These roads are almost a hundred years old and so are many of the shopfront buildings with stores and businesses pre-dating the huge increases in traffic they must now try to cope with. To say they should never have been allowed to develop these shops fails to recognise that long history.
I agree that we should develop more pedestrian friendly areas and this is gradually occuring. The area one or two streets back from Victoria Road in West Ryde is developing as a more pedestrian friendly environment. Parramatta Road through Auburn is no longer a major thoroughfare and has been re-developed as a homemaker's shopping destination largely accessible by car only. It has a history as an industrial area and so has always needed very little pedestrian/reisdential access.
The big-box store set up on Parramatta Road at Auburn makes tonnes of sense.
still would be nice to have it accessible by foot and bicycle (i'm dreaming aren't I 🤣). Also even if u do drive, the second you get out of your car you turn into a pedestrian. You should be able to walk anywhere fairly safely, and my gosh you shouldnt have to hop back in your car to just go to a shop across the street!! Just so needlessly wasteful, all because the road infrastructure forces you to be like that :\
Used to live on the Pacific Highway it was fucking horrid, the Inner West portion of Parramatta and Canterbury road are also hostile to life, endless rows of dilapidated and failed small business. Dunno what it is but every stroad in Sydney has a 99 bikes shop on it, must be the slow traffic driving business.
Why would u eat pizza hut when 99.9 %of Sydney has a local pizza shop that 95% of the time is better than pizza hut. I crunched the numbers trust me
Rockdale is an example of a Stroad that actually works. Most of the shops straddle the 6 lane Princes Highway, but almost all of them are occupied & there's always people on the sidewalks. The difference is that there's a traffic light crossing every 100 meters or so & they're all timed to match the main intersection, limiting traffic congestion.
There's been talk of "fixing" the Parramatta Rd Stroad for decades, and there's a perfectly serviceable alternative Road running parallel to it mere meters away. The only thing stopping it is the current Governments addiction to toll roads. Every weekend you'll see Parramatta Stroad constantly congested to the point of almost standstill, while the M4 is almost empty in comparison because people don't want to pay the tolls. It's a similar situation on Canterbury Road, where traffic has increased with the introduction of the toll for the M5 East, which was never previously a toll road.
It makes me wonder whether we should remove all tolls from the motorways (maybe except the Harbour Bridge and the Tunnel) and instead we should introduce congestion charges for any private traffic (except buses, emergency vehicles) using Victoria/Parramatta Roads or Pacific Highway. And maybe find a way to link toll tags with Opal and provide discounts for any trips made by public transport.
The problem is limited on road parking. Kingsford and Kensington is the example. Once they remove on street parking, the business just decay within 2-3 years.
@@anubizz3 Way late to the discussion here, but I think what you’re pointing out is actually that American and Australian cities have gotten so used to the mindset that customers can only come if they can drive to a store (except in the CBD).
I’ve found in European and Asian cities that businesses can very well thrive along stroads since people there don’t drive to visit those shops. It’s hard to get the active and public transport infrastructure balanced with through vehicular traffic, but it can be done. Some examples would be Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona, Hennessy Road in Hong Kong, Eu Tong Sen St/New Bridge Rd in Singapore-these roads all have major through traffic, but they’re not nearly as hostile to pedestrians despite having so many lanes.
immediately, there were shops in Eastwood that were closed - you know, in that area encouraging walking and customers to benefit businesses. A stroad may be legitimate but malls and shopping centres have killed these shops, not the road themselves. You need to rethink your uni project.
I think the best people, pedestrian, and family-friendly, yet business friendly suburb is Glebe.
Glebe point road has parks on both ends. Walk to the library. Lots of nice little shops, restos, coffee shops. A mall with all you need tucked away in a back street not hogging or anchoring the neighborhood. Beautiful terrace homes.
I loved living there.
It is pretty much perfect.
Agreed, I wish they could make Newtown as charming as the vibe in Glebe, only problem for both places is that parking sucks, they should fix that too.
I'm one of those landlords in Glebe and yes, my tenants all sing praises about Glebe.
Your skewed view of George Street is hilarious. Bustling? Go talk to the businesses that had to shut down forever. Comparing Victoria road to Eastwood is easy to do when you forget about the heavy vehicle movement corridor.
Thanks for the video, comprehensive like always. The idea of stroads really shocked me during the first few months when I came here in particular roads that were named highways or A roads. When I lived in Ireland majority of their highways or N roads (equivalent to NSW A) were actually bypass standards, losing the N marker near Dublin CBD where there is largely pedestrian activity.
They can fix West Ryde a bit more by cutting out two lanes of Vic Road, creating a 4 way crossing at Station Street/Victoria Road, paint the road a slightly different colour to give more intimacy, and help revive the crappy shops. I think a family has had a large investment in West Ryde and they resist change at all turns.
I know the area well and there is not one owner of a lot of shops there. Council needs to rezone it like Drummoyne
@@freespeech2870 What did they do with Drummoyne?
@@yesand5536 rezoned It to high rise. And there is lots of new buildings there
@@freespeech2870 Ah yes, true, good idea. That's the place to put the high rises.
This video summarises really well why I have no desire to move back to Sydney since having moved away over 5 years ago. Maybe in the future when the stroads are gone and car dependency is greatly reduced I may consider returning.
Tell all the car addicts to move to America and Canada
Hey Sharith! Great video. You're in my neighbourhood and I am grateful that this video points out a lot of pain points in our lovely Ryde area. Unfortunately I think Victoria Road is doomed to stay the way it is. They could add more frequent buses and encourage its use though... The strip malls on Parramatta Road are really hideous and depressing. Would love to walk the streets of Sydney with you and talk about planning and transport in our city and pluck your brain for ideas. Maybe you should hold a meet and greet for locals, I think a lot of like-minded people would love to meet you.
Closing streets off to cars is all well and good until you need service vehicles to access those areas. Like builders, plumbers, deliveries, patient transport, etc…
I never knew Castle Hill's town center was like that before. Now it's really pleasant to walk down, can't imagine what it would be like now if the stroad wasn't repurposed.
May I ask if Castle Hill is friendly to pedestrians? I was told that the roads are a bit hilly as it is in the "hills"
Only the area around the metro station is what I would consider as pedestrian friendly. The wider suburb itself is still pretty car-centric.
Some streets in the suburb are a little hilly, yes. But the main road (Old Northern Road) is relatively flat. I once walked from Castle Hill to Baulkham Hills along that road, took maybe half an hour and wasn't too bad (although it's downhill in that direction).
All these businesses are out of business because who the hell has time to even shop anymore when you're driving to and from the city after a 12 hour long day and even if you wanted to where do you park?
Its soooo good that we have tolls on all the brand new motorway uogrades and tunnels to help everyone get off the new roads and back onto the congested roads
A major reason Old Northern Rd in Castle Hill was fixed was because of the metro station going in. Terminus St has been 4 lanes wide for decades. The key is dramatically reducing car journeys.