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 Some historical reference imagery or old maps would be a great addition to this story.
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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 🤣
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.
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!
Returning home to Sydney always makes me weep. The increasing car dependency and deteriorating public transport is destroying my city. It is so 20th Century, it is a failed technology. Changing people's behaviour is very hard and slow but we must keep at it. It means reducing car capacity on those stroads, not building by-passes. It means prioritising local trips over all others. Stroads are the least efficient way of enabling urban mobility. Put in bus and cycle lanes, wider pavements with crossings. The drivers stuck in traffic will eventually demand better public transport and those businesses will thrive. Reviving local community centres reduces the need to drive. My Sydney friends are so pessimistic, I believe we can change. This change is happening in other cities all over the world.
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.
Carlingford is a great example of awful urban planning. That train station has been closed since 2020 and it is no great loss because many locals have never been able to access it without a car! And everyone uses Epping to get elsewhere. All these areas connecting from the west to the north/northwest are full of awful stroads. Eastwood is great but could still be better connected for those without a vehicle. So frustrating.
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.
When I'm explaining stroads to people, I say "streets are places to be, roads are how you get to places, and as soon as a street starts servicing through-traffic, the rot has begun, and a stroad is born". I'm not saying nobody should ever drive through a street, but I mean the first time the built environment is changed in favour of through-traffic, like adding a lane, or changing the traffic light timings, that's the beginning of the end for a street.
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
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…
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.
Lawson in the blue mountains were smart and build their Main Street on a street that branched off the Great western highway which makes the Main Street was nicer except the train station is on the other highway side
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.
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
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
0:38 they should just demloish all these buildings, create frontage roads for residence, and make the entire road a freeway with onramps and offramps every kilometre or so
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 key to their solution is in the nickname. The storefronts want to sell products to customers where there is no on-street parking and the motorists want to get where they need without stopping. Old and modern uses of a carriageway smashed together without thought given to the future livability of the aesthetically toxic environment they generate. If the roads cannot be diverted easily, then the stores need to be turned to face the laneways that run behind these commercial spaces. Essentially turn their backs to the road so it becomes a true road and give pedestrians a more tranquil walking experience.
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.
I came here via the SMH article. and i am so glad I did. I hope you become a significant person in Sydney's urban planning one day. we need people like you with vision
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.
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.
Sydney is just one big continuing fail of town planning. Mind you, now living in another Australian city I am seeing many of the same issues. The fencing on the stroads is mainly to stop pedestrians walking into traffic - for all the issues around cars, there are plenty of idiots who cross at the wrong place and get injured/killed for their trouble. Other issue it tries to address is to limit the number of vehicles that like driving along the footpath (willingly or otherwise). I visited the Sydney CBD mid 2022 after 2.5 years away due to covid travel restrictions - I would argue Sydney CBD is dead compared to what it was pre-covid...and the tram is just another step towards removing cars from the CBD...I swear every time I go back to Sydney driving around the CBD is more and more annoying...
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.
Top Ryde is also awful for pedestrians. It is all about driving in and out of the shopping centre. North Ryde and Macquarie also seem to be all about driving, not walking.
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.
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?
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.
I was at the pub next door when that car drove into that building on Victoria road, it was a Honda civic that drove into a civic video. Luckily it was school holidays, otherwise a dozen children would have been waiting at the lights right in the path of that car. Victoria road is a disgusting stroad that feels hostile to pedestrians
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
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.
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
I would love to know why the councils like to approve apartments been built on stroads? Like canterbury road? Do they like people living next to roads and pollution and noise? Whats the logic of approving apartments on roads instead of quiet streets?
Yeah living on a main Rd doesn't work. I live on a side street off Parramatta Rd and it's too loud. Actually living on the main Rd would be a lot worse. They'll eventually realise approving these developments was a stupid idea.
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 lived in Carlingford in the mid-late 70's as a young kid and can say nothing has changed. The shops on Pennant Hills Rd were to get fruit and veg and not much else from memory. West Ryde was my next stop from the start to mid 80's. I went to West Ryde P.S and can say West Ryde always had a dark feeling about it. I spent countless hours walking through all the arcades etc and it was always run down. That was when Norman Ross now Harvey Norman was on Victoria Rd. There used to be a milk Bar and laundry mat just up from Station St which I lived on and lots more but just lacked so much. Ryde council just don't have an interest in anything so it seems.
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?
Nailed it. Except Victoria Rd and other stroads could easily be transformed. Cut them down to 2 traffic lanes. Add light rail or bus lanes. Lower the speed limit/design speed. Add some mid-block pedestrian crossings. Much of the traffic will evaporate*. *Please do a video on traffic evaporation one day!
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.
One of the reasons Eastwood (which is still not ideal by most metrics when it comes to layouts for suburban sprawl) is planned out that way, because it's technically built on a flood plain.
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!!
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
excellent Mk1 Ford Capri at 5:59 they were the same design as the european version but assembled in australia from 1969 to 1972. great to see an original condition vehicle still registered and enjoyed today
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...)
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
The other factor driving this desolation is that the valuation of commercial property is based on current rental yield, plus growth over decades. Owners take huge hits to valuation if they drop rents. Unless they rent to charities, and claim the difference in rent as a donation. And before people get up in arms about evil landlords, a massive number of commercial properties are assembled into portfolios which in turn are invested in by our own super funds.
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.
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.
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.
those businesses fail because of the lack of parking. stroads have nothing to do with it. those customers can go to the businesses via their cars. which is much more convenient than walking 30 mins to get to the store
Found this channel through this video and now I’m binging all your videos! I’ve lived in Sydney all my life and it is so great to see an accessible online conversation around Sydney and it’s liveability. I hope your body of work here can contribute to real change in our policy making.
RHODES IS DEVIDED IN TO TWO PARTS ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE STATION IS A3 HOMBUSH BAY ROAD A MAINE ARTERIAL ROAD ON THE WEST SIDE ON THE VIDIO IS SHOPPING CENTERS AND HIGH RISE HOUSING WITCH IS BUIOLT ON OLD INDUSTRAL LAND OLD PAINT AND BATTERY FACTORT
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.
In Sydney, for the most part the purpose of a road wasn't confused with that of a street. A very important factor hasn't been considered; Majority of Sydney's main roads began as dirt roads back in the days when people travelled on horse back and horse carriages to and from the then Rocks area & harbourside settlements. Over time, as population grew, people built houses and setup shops along and close to these roads. The way things evolved, made it either difficult or not possible to plan or change things.
Roads might work, but the problem is they aren’t limited to roads and flow onto streets, eventually making them into stroads. The more roads a city has, the more stroads it needs.
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.
Those old Stroads used to have FREE all day parking right outside what ever shop you wanted to go to, plus the old trams which you could jump off right outside the shops, Bus lanes / Bike Lanes / No Right Turns / No all Day free parking ( half an hour parking now if. you are lucky and. don't have to Pay) / Fencing to herd people / Useless Road islands with plants that buses and large vehicles struggle to get around and take away car parking spaces ....... this is what has killed the business, { Bring back the Free all day parking outside the businesses
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.
Its exactly the same all over australia, lived in townsville for about 7 years and its just as horrible there. 6 lanes with shops on either side. The wonderful council even demolished the once pedestrian only bustling inner city mall to allow cars to drive though once again. live in Germany now and love it, none of this shit.
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.
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.
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.
Same in Melbourne, the "inner" suburbs suffer the worst with stroads. Whereas the outer suburbs with large shopping centres are much more desirable with more freedom to park cars away from the shops in multi stories.
shopping centres are a massive kill to local shops. why go to the local grocery shop and clothes shop when coles, a high end clothes shop and other useful shops are located in the same building and is easier to get to? Even in my rural town, we have a shopping centre and ever since it was built the entire town centre became a ghost town
One thing I find interesting in Sydney, as opposed to many Asian and North American cities, is that there are pockets of stroad where the local businesses seem to thrive. You just need to look on the southern side of the river. Think Anzac Parade in Kingsford, King Georges Road in Beverly Hills, Kingsway in Miranda, Pacific Highway in Crows Nest, Princes Highway in Rockdale. Plus Bondi Junction, Burwood, Campsie, Hurstville, and Strathfield's arterials were diverted to go around pedestrianised town centres.
Epping used to be this way. beecroft road through epping has always been a traffic nightmare, but i remember back from the early 2000's through the mid 2010's the businesses were doing just fine and foot traffic was plentiful. have probably visited epping only twice in the past 8 years so i couldnt comment on exactly what has happened, but i doubt beecroft road is at fault there, as its only improved over time (for pedestrians).
@@iris4547 Epping has two town centres, one on the east side of the train station and the other one block west of Beecroft Road. Both are pretty nice because they are located on local streets. Hornsby has a similar scenario as Epping, but the west side town centre could do some transformation. In my opinion, those town centres that do well tend to relocate their town centres a block or two off the main road and allow the main road to road instead of a stroad.
Small business has always been on the hit list , self employment is a dying breed , the roads are designed to travel to your megastore where corporations will employ you and sell to you .
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.
I enjoyed living in west ryde at the time, now I live and work in a walkable melbourne suburb with 3 tram lines and a train at my door. Can never go back. But also screw Pizza Hut West Ryde, Secret Slice West Ryde is some of the best pizza period.
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.
Thornleigh has changed SOOOOOO much.... All these NEW apartments. What a horrible place to live on Penno Road YUK. Used to take that to work Wahrronga to Castle Hill ! of Sydney's WOST roads LMAFO
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.
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 :\
Thanks so much for this video. It hurts to admit that I have ridden a bike along all these stroads and lived to tell the tale. The only consolation is that corridors paralleling and intersecting these corridors have,in piecemeal fashion, been retrofitted with metro light rail and cycle ways. Thank you fighting the good fight
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 😉
You are missing a bit of particular Sydney history - a lot of the businesses along the stroads are land NSW government used to own so they could be expanded into larger roads/proper highways, but were sold off in a privatisation
We were in burwood recently and they have the entire main street closed off/detoured due to maintenance on the rail bridge at Burwood station. The entire main street has no traffic, no parking... and it's amazing. every business is extra busy and it feels so *good* to be out at night atm. We were just talking the other day about how great it would be if it was a permanent thing, with the main traffic route moved to the street behind the westfield/encouraged to move through Wentworth and Shaftbury Rds and Burwood road replaced with streetside seating from the corner of the park right up through Ethel st (a quick look on google maps should explain what i'm talking about. would be interesting if you could fit in a video before they finish the bridge repairs to show what i'm talking about
Oxford Street in the Sydney CBD is a horrible stroad. Heavy vehicular traffic, polluted, noisy, lots of shops empty, boarded up and closed. They should turn Oxford Street back into a street with only 1 lane of traffic in either direction, widen footpaths, reduce speed limit to 30km/h, and encourage alfresco outdoor dining and cafes, like the wonderful Oxford Street in London. Thank you for making this excellent video.
Love seeing Sydney on an urban planning channel. So good. As much as these stroads suck in Sydney, it's unbelievably worse in America. Fingers crossed the Sydney of tomorrow is more pedestrian friendly.
as a Canadian those "stroads look a LOT like the ones over here and in the older/smaller cities in North America and I agree they are worse then the "car heaven" that is the monstrosities seen on youtube with there strip malls as these style of stroads used to be streets NOW over run by car traffic NOT WANTING TO BE THERE and the businesses can NOT service those customers and there "need" for monstrous parking space requirements that new by plan stroads/big box strip malls can handle and that is why they are dying and becoming a "wasteland"
I lived in Sydney back during its transformation years (2008-2009), the Epping - Chatswood line is under construction, and roads are being transformed into pedestrian way. My first stay was in West Ryde. It is decrepit and depressing, and only alive near the railway station. Youth delinquency is pretty apparent here, with plenty of abandoned stores looted, its windows smashed, locks broken, etc. You can see empty beer cans and bottles inside it. West Ryde is very American suburban in a way that, the only visitable place near my place of stay is a very American suburbia Maccas building complete with its parking lawn and McCafe drive-through. Its car-oriented service is perhaps the reason why it survived. Rhodes/Homebush was heavily under construction during those years, I am glad that it feels more European today. Then I moved closer to Macquarie uni and lived in North Epping. It perhaps feels like American suburb with its single-family homes, but then again, it is more like small town, because it actually has community area and totally walkable, although access to Epping station is like 20 minutes walk away or 5 minutes with bus 295. As an American-minded car driver, it never occurs to me how horrible stroad is: not friendly to pedestrians and yet very annoying for drivers as well with its street-side parking: cars have to slow down to park or look for a space, yet the road is wide enough to get you to 50 mph. And car running through building is probably a Hollywood action trope, until I learned that it is an English-speaking country thing - there was a car running through a Bank in Banksia, my friend thought it was a movie stunt or a bank robbery, but really it was just accident. Not even reckless, careless, skilless drivers in Jakarta ever ran into a building every 5 years or so. But it was pretty common. A bakery was ran through by a car in North Sydney. Parramatta road is indeed the worst and a good example of it. The crime rate and youth problems is reflected by it. They not only smash abandoned buildings, but sometimes road signs and street lamps while under drunken stupor. Eastwood was known to be the "Chinatown" and the place of Granny Smith apple festival. I was cynical in my American mindset that the place is rather "dirty" and a bit "backwater" - but appreciate that pedestrian-friendly mall. It has convenient access to all kinds of major destinations, downtown, Central, Chatswood, Macquarie, and Epping is just a station away. Looking back at it, Epping is more westernised, despite taking a lot of Korean and Vietnamese influx during my time there. So things are less livelier, but tidier. I can't help but to think how car-oriented it was, like getting to Coles from the other side of the station took quite a lot of walking. They boast quite a lot of transit connections, from East-West-North-South, and even to downtown, you name it, no need to change vehicles to reach your final destination. But then, compared to Eastwood now, I think it is a bit overrated. Back in the day, they still have that "gadgetbahn" of Sydney Monorail - super expensive and hardly practical, they removed it - glad that they can spend tax money elsewhere. And then they removed that Lillyfield - The Star Casino (Star City back then) Pyrmont Bay GLR tram... which I quite liked despite not having extensive network. It effectively turned some of the abandoned tram tracks into stroads. I am glad that now George Street and Pitt Street are the way it is right now. A lot of people from the rivalling city of Melbourne always disses about how decrepit, rundown, and disorganised Sydney was. But I love its interesting Euro layout instead of Melbourne's American blocky layout. There is a lot of catching up to, but Sydney is getting better everyday.
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.
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 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.
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
It’s not so simple. Strodes develop out of a response to immediate demands rather than future considerations. So they’re a product of lack of planning resources plus high demand for city access, over time. There’s also a culture of car ownership implicit in how we reach the best experiences the city has to offer. We need car ownership to sustain personal freedoms and identity. Businesses along these strodes pay a premium for the exposure rather than their reliance on walk-in traffic. These are just a few of the issues. Maybe attitudes will change but without the automobile we’re also looking at a decrease in the economic resources which could produce more pleasant neighbourhoods. Do yourself a favour. Do what you can with what you have. We appreciate your efforts. Then when your energy runs out go live somewhere nice. Best of luck.
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.
Hello, I just wanted to say I really enjoy your videos so much so much more than anything else on TV at the moment. Thank you so much for your contribution and I look forward to more
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
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.
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
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.
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
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?
This channel has a great future! Hope you make a difference to Sydney’s city planning.
Thank you!!
Hoping!
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 🤣
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
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
Returning home to Sydney always makes me weep. The increasing car dependency and deteriorating public transport is destroying my city. It is so 20th Century, it is a failed technology.
Changing people's behaviour is very hard and slow but we must keep at it. It means reducing car capacity on those stroads, not building by-passes. It means prioritising local trips over all others. Stroads are the least efficient way of enabling urban mobility. Put in bus and cycle lanes, wider pavements with crossings. The drivers stuck in traffic will eventually demand better public transport and those businesses will thrive. Reviving local community centres reduces the need to drive.
My Sydney friends are so pessimistic, I believe we can change. This change is happening in other cities all over the world.
Am with you brotha...and I reckon if people love being car-centric...ship em all to America or 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.
Carlingford is a great example of awful urban planning. That train station has been closed since 2020 and it is no great loss because many locals have never been able to access it without a car! And everyone uses Epping to get elsewhere. All these areas connecting from the west to the north/northwest are full of awful stroads. Eastwood is great but could still be better connected for those without a vehicle. So frustrating.
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.
When I'm explaining stroads to people, I say "streets are places to be, roads are how you get to places, and as soon as a street starts servicing through-traffic, the rot has begun, and a stroad is born". I'm not saying nobody should ever drive through a street, but I mean the first time the built environment is changed in favour of through-traffic, like adding a lane, or changing the traffic light timings, that's the beginning of the end for a street.
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
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…
That’s what back roads are for, and usually are allowed to drive on pedestrianised roads if they go slow.
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.
Lawson in the blue mountains were smart and build their Main Street on a street that branched off the Great western highway which makes the Main Street was nicer except the train station is on the other highway side
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.
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
There you go never knew the difference between a street and a road! Learnt something new today! As always great vid!
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!
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
0:38 they should just demloish all these buildings, create frontage roads for residence, and make the entire road a freeway with onramps and offramps every kilometre or so
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 key to their solution is in the nickname. The storefronts want to sell products to customers where there is no on-street parking and the motorists want to get where they need without stopping. Old and modern uses of a carriageway smashed together without thought given to the future livability of the aesthetically toxic environment they generate. If the roads cannot be diverted easily, then the stores need to be turned to face the laneways that run behind these commercial spaces. Essentially turn their backs to the road so it becomes a true road and give pedestrians a more tranquil walking experience.
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.
I came here via the SMH article. and i am so glad I did. I hope you become a significant person in Sydney's urban planning one day. we need people like you with vision
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.
Sydney is just one big continuing fail of town planning. Mind you, now living in another Australian city I am seeing many of the same issues.
The fencing on the stroads is mainly to stop pedestrians walking into traffic - for all the issues around cars, there are plenty of idiots who cross at the wrong place and get injured/killed for their trouble. Other issue it tries to address is to limit the number of vehicles that like driving along the footpath (willingly or otherwise).
I visited the Sydney CBD mid 2022 after 2.5 years away due to covid travel restrictions - I would argue Sydney CBD is dead compared to what it was pre-covid...and the tram is just another step towards removing cars from the CBD...I swear every time I go back to Sydney driving around the CBD is more and more annoying...
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.
Top Ryde is also awful for pedestrians. It is all about driving in and out of the shopping centre. North Ryde and Macquarie also seem to be all about driving, not walking.
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.
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?
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.
I was at the pub next door when that car drove into that building on Victoria road, it was a Honda civic that drove into a civic video. Luckily it was school holidays, otherwise a dozen children would have been waiting at the lights right in the path of that car.
Victoria road is a disgusting stroad that feels hostile to pedestrians
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"
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.
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
I would love to know why the councils like to approve apartments been built on stroads? Like canterbury road? Do they like people living next to roads and pollution and noise? Whats the logic of approving apartments on roads instead of quiet streets?
Yeah living on a main Rd doesn't work. I live on a side street off Parramatta Rd and it's too loud. Actually living on the main Rd would be a lot worse. They'll eventually realise approving these developments was a stupid idea.
Have you heard of NIMBY? On noisy roads there's not much of that as opposed to quiet tree-lined streets.
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 lived in Carlingford in the mid-late 70's as a young kid and can say nothing has changed. The shops on Pennant Hills Rd were to get fruit and veg and not much else from memory.
West Ryde was my next stop from the start to mid 80's. I went to West Ryde P.S and can say West Ryde always had a dark feeling about it. I spent countless hours walking through all the arcades etc and it was always run down. That was when Norman Ross now Harvey Norman was on Victoria Rd. There used to be a milk Bar and laundry mat just up from Station St which I lived on and lots more but just lacked so much. Ryde council just don't have an interest in anything so it seems.
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?
Nailed it. Except Victoria Rd and other stroads could easily be transformed. Cut them down to 2 traffic lanes. Add light rail or bus lanes. Lower the speed limit/design speed. Add some mid-block pedestrian crossings. Much of the traffic will evaporate*.
*Please do a video on traffic evaporation one day!
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.
That's why we left Sydney 12 years ago. West Ryde still looks the same I see.
It's about time Australia got some RUclips stroad love.
One of the reasons Eastwood (which is still not ideal by most metrics when it comes to layouts for suburban sprawl) is planned out that way, because it's technically built on a flood plain.
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!!
It wasn't that long ago that you could get parking spot, even in the CBD, but there's a lot more people now.
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
excellent Mk1 Ford Capri at 5:59 they were the same design as the european version but assembled in australia from 1969 to 1972. great to see an original condition vehicle still registered and enjoyed today
saw that too, it's a beauty.
Hardcore bans on loud exhausts and subwoofers would go a long way to making these areas more appealing
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...)
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.
The other factor driving this desolation is that the valuation of commercial property is based on current rental yield, plus growth over decades. Owners take huge hits to valuation if they drop rents. Unless they rent to charities, and claim the difference in rent as a donation.
And before people get up in arms about evil landlords, a massive number of commercial properties are assembled into portfolios which in turn are invested in by our own super funds.
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.
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.
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.
those businesses fail because of the lack of parking. stroads have nothing to do with it.
those customers can go to the businesses via their cars. which is much more convenient than walking 30 mins to get to the store
Found this channel through this video and now I’m binging all your videos! I’ve lived in Sydney all my life and it is so great to see an accessible online conversation around Sydney and it’s liveability. I hope your body of work here can contribute to real change in our policy making.
RHODES IS DEVIDED IN TO TWO PARTS ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE STATION IS A3 HOMBUSH BAY ROAD A MAINE ARTERIAL ROAD ON THE WEST SIDE
ON THE VIDIO IS SHOPPING CENTERS AND HIGH RISE HOUSING WITCH IS BUIOLT ON OLD INDUSTRAL LAND OLD PAINT AND BATTERY FACTORT
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.
The ring-road is king! Thanks for a great vid. Great breakdown of such a prevalent issue in Sydney. Loving this channel!
In Sydney, for the most part the purpose of a road wasn't confused with that of a street. A very important factor hasn't been considered; Majority of Sydney's main roads began as dirt roads back in the days when people travelled on horse back and horse carriages to and from the then Rocks area & harbourside settlements. Over time, as population grew, people built houses and setup shops along and close to these roads. The way things evolved, made it either difficult or not possible to plan or change things.
I've read that central Sydney's main street - George St - was previously an aboriginal track which was previously a kangaroo track
Roads might work, but the problem is they aren’t limited to roads and flow onto streets, eventually making them into stroads.
The more roads a city has, the more stroads it needs.
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
Those old Stroads used to have FREE all day parking right outside what ever shop you wanted to go to, plus the old trams which you could jump off right outside the shops, Bus lanes / Bike Lanes / No Right Turns / No all Day free parking ( half an hour parking now if. you are lucky and. don't have to Pay) / Fencing to herd people / Useless Road islands with plants that buses and large vehicles struggle to get around and take away car parking spaces ....... this is what has killed the business, { Bring back the Free all day parking outside the businesses
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.
Its exactly the same all over australia, lived in townsville for about 7 years and its just as horrible there. 6 lanes with shops on either side. The wonderful council even demolished the once pedestrian only bustling inner city mall to allow cars to drive though once again.
live in Germany now and love it, none of this shit.
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 !
We need to build cities for people not cars. Well made video, thanks for making this. More people need to see this
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.
Just spent a week in sydney, I hated walking on paths near roads like this, way too much pollution, could barely breathe
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.
Thank you for continuously showing up and making great work on great topics!
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.
Same in Melbourne, the "inner" suburbs suffer the worst with stroads. Whereas the outer suburbs with large shopping centres are much more desirable with more freedom to park cars away from the shops in multi stories.
shopping centres are a massive kill to local shops. why go to the local grocery shop and clothes shop when coles, a high end clothes shop and other useful shops are located in the same building and is easier to get to?
Even in my rural town, we have a shopping centre and ever since it was built the entire town centre became a ghost town
One thing I find interesting in Sydney, as opposed to many Asian and North American cities, is that there are pockets of stroad where the local businesses seem to thrive. You just need to look on the southern side of the river.
Think Anzac Parade in Kingsford, King Georges Road in Beverly Hills, Kingsway in Miranda, Pacific Highway in Crows Nest, Princes Highway in Rockdale.
Plus Bondi Junction, Burwood, Campsie, Hurstville, and Strathfield's arterials were diverted to go around pedestrianised town centres.
Epping used to be this way. beecroft road through epping has always been a traffic nightmare, but i remember back from the early 2000's through the mid 2010's the businesses were doing just fine and foot traffic was plentiful. have probably visited epping only twice in the past 8 years so i couldnt comment on exactly what has happened, but i doubt beecroft road is at fault there, as its only improved over time (for pedestrians).
@@iris4547 Epping has two town centres, one on the east side of the train station and the other one block west of Beecroft Road. Both are pretty nice because they are located on local streets.
Hornsby has a similar scenario as Epping, but the west side town centre could do some transformation.
In my opinion, those town centres that do well tend to relocate their town centres a block or two off the main road and allow the main road to road instead of a stroad.
Crows Nest is on the northern side.
I think you’ll find the businesses you mentioned thrived in spite of their respective stroads, not because of them.
@MattyBRaps400 that's the main road
Small business has always been on the hit list , self employment is a dying breed , the roads are designed to travel to your megastore where corporations will employ you and sell to you .
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.
I enjoyed living in west ryde at the time, now I live and work in a walkable melbourne suburb with 3 tram lines and a train at my door. Can never go back. But also screw Pizza Hut West Ryde, Secret Slice West Ryde is some of the best pizza period.
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.
Thornleigh has changed SOOOOOO much.... All these NEW apartments. What a horrible place to live on Penno Road YUK. Used to take that to work Wahrronga to Castle Hill ! of Sydney's WOST roads LMAFO
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 :\
Thanks so much for this video. It hurts to admit that I have ridden a bike along all these stroads and lived to tell the tale. The only consolation is that corridors paralleling and intersecting these corridors have,in piecemeal fashion, been retrofitted with metro light rail and cycle ways. Thank you fighting the good fight
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 😉
You are missing a bit of particular Sydney history - a lot of the businesses along the stroads are land NSW government used to own so they could be expanded into larger roads/proper highways, but were sold off in a privatisation
We were in burwood recently and they have the entire main street closed off/detoured due to maintenance on the rail bridge at Burwood station.
The entire main street has no traffic, no parking... and it's amazing.
every business is extra busy and it feels so *good* to be out at night atm.
We were just talking the other day about how great it would be if it was a permanent thing, with the main traffic route moved to the street behind the westfield/encouraged to move through Wentworth and Shaftbury Rds and Burwood road replaced with streetside seating from the corner of the park right up through Ethel st (a quick look on google maps should explain what i'm talking about.
would be interesting if you could fit in a video before they finish the bridge repairs to show what i'm talking about
Oxford Street in the Sydney CBD is a horrible stroad. Heavy vehicular traffic, polluted, noisy, lots of shops empty, boarded up and closed. They should turn Oxford Street back into a street with only 1 lane of traffic in either direction, widen footpaths, reduce speed limit to 30km/h, and encourage alfresco outdoor dining and cafes, like the wonderful Oxford Street in London.
Thank you for making this excellent video.
Love seeing Sydney on an urban planning channel. So good. As much as these stroads suck in Sydney, it's unbelievably worse in America. Fingers crossed the Sydney of tomorrow is more pedestrian friendly.
as a Canadian those "stroads look a LOT like the ones over here and in the older/smaller cities in North America and I agree they are worse then the "car heaven" that is the monstrosities seen on youtube with there strip malls
as these style of stroads used to be streets NOW over run by car traffic NOT WANTING TO BE THERE and the businesses can NOT service those customers and there "need" for monstrous parking space requirements that new by plan stroads/big box strip malls can handle and that is why they are dying and becoming a "wasteland"
Once saw a car crash through the fence at Turramurra. Never knew about this concept but makes so much sense. Great video
I lived in Sydney back during its transformation years (2008-2009), the Epping - Chatswood line is under construction, and roads are being transformed into pedestrian way.
My first stay was in West Ryde. It is decrepit and depressing, and only alive near the railway station. Youth delinquency is pretty apparent here, with plenty of abandoned stores looted, its windows smashed, locks broken, etc. You can see empty beer cans and bottles inside it.
West Ryde is very American suburban in a way that, the only visitable place near my place of stay is a very American suburbia Maccas building complete with its parking lawn and McCafe drive-through. Its car-oriented service is perhaps the reason why it survived.
Rhodes/Homebush was heavily under construction during those years, I am glad that it feels more European today.
Then I moved closer to Macquarie uni and lived in North Epping. It perhaps feels like American suburb with its single-family homes, but then again, it is more like small town, because it actually has community area and totally walkable, although access to Epping station is like 20 minutes walk away or 5 minutes with bus 295.
As an American-minded car driver, it never occurs to me how horrible stroad is: not friendly to pedestrians and yet very annoying for drivers as well with its street-side parking: cars have to slow down to park or look for a space, yet the road is wide enough to get you to 50 mph. And car running through building is probably a Hollywood action trope, until I learned that it is an English-speaking country thing - there was a car running through a Bank in Banksia, my friend thought it was a movie stunt or a bank robbery, but really it was just accident. Not even reckless, careless, skilless drivers in Jakarta ever ran into a building every 5 years or so. But it was pretty common. A bakery was ran through by a car in North Sydney. Parramatta road is indeed the worst and a good example of it. The crime rate and youth problems is reflected by it. They not only smash abandoned buildings, but sometimes road signs and street lamps while under drunken stupor.
Eastwood was known to be the "Chinatown" and the place of Granny Smith apple festival. I was cynical in my American mindset that the place is rather "dirty" and a bit "backwater" - but appreciate that pedestrian-friendly mall. It has convenient access to all kinds of major destinations, downtown, Central, Chatswood, Macquarie, and Epping is just a station away. Looking back at it, Epping is more westernised, despite taking a lot of Korean and Vietnamese influx during my time there. So things are less livelier, but tidier. I can't help but to think how car-oriented it was, like getting to Coles from the other side of the station took quite a lot of walking. They boast quite a lot of transit connections, from East-West-North-South, and even to downtown, you name it, no need to change vehicles to reach your final destination. But then, compared to Eastwood now, I think it is a bit overrated.
Back in the day, they still have that "gadgetbahn" of Sydney Monorail - super expensive and hardly practical, they removed it - glad that they can spend tax money elsewhere. And then they removed that Lillyfield - The Star Casino (Star City back then) Pyrmont Bay GLR tram... which I quite liked despite not having extensive network. It effectively turned some of the abandoned tram tracks into stroads. I am glad that now George Street and Pitt Street are the way it is right now. A lot of people from the rivalling city of Melbourne always disses about how decrepit, rundown, and disorganised Sydney was. But I love its interesting Euro layout instead of Melbourne's American blocky layout. There is a lot of catching up to, but Sydney is getting better everyday.
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.
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 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.
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
It’s not so simple. Strodes develop out of a response to immediate demands rather than future considerations. So they’re a product of lack of planning resources plus high demand for city access, over time. There’s also a culture of car ownership implicit in how we reach the best experiences the city has to offer. We need car ownership to sustain personal freedoms and identity. Businesses along these strodes pay a premium for the exposure rather than their reliance on walk-in traffic. These are just a few of the issues. Maybe attitudes will change but without the automobile we’re also looking at a decrease in the economic resources which could produce more pleasant neighbourhoods.
Do yourself a favour. Do what you can with what you have. We appreciate your efforts. Then when your energy runs out go live somewhere nice. Best of luck.
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.
Hello, I just wanted to say I really enjoy your videos so much so much more than anything else on TV at the moment. Thank you so much for your contribution and I look forward to more