urban planning thread (was: The Problem with Stroads)

Comments

  • more from whence that came


    this video is so true and i hate how true it is

    the worst part is that i know just how freaking prevalent these car-dependent suburbs are and i find myself furiously scratching my head wondering how in the world we will ever undo all this junk that's already been built

    even as a 12 year old i could tell there was something wrong with this, and i had no idea what zoning laws were at that age
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    basically everywhere around here is Stroad City and that's a major reason why I prefer to just stay home as much as possible
  • it's interesting to compare NotJustBikes's scores on these two tripes with this other YouTuber's scores on the same trips

    the other YouTuber is Shifter; Shifter lives in Calgary while NJB lives in Amsterdam.  TL;DW is that they both took a bike trip about 10 km to a suburban hardware store and both rated each of the trips (their own and the other guy's), using a "plus one, minus two" rating system.

    you might expect Amsterdam, being notoriously bike-friendly, scores higher.  and yes, it does.  but what's most interesting here is how their two perspectives differ from each other -- like, what do each of them praise or dock points for.



  • designing a bike-friendly city also means having bikes that are, well, friendlier themselves

  • also the channel is called Not Just Bikes so here's something other than bikes


  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    that's a cute lil vehicle
  • hey look, it's not another NotJustBikes video


  • if you're ever asked to design roads, Princess, I beg of you, please do what you can to stop making the same mistakes your predecessors have made with these things
  • idea:

    there are big parking lots in front of stores
    this area can be repurposed into lower-speed access streets
    then the stroads can have some lanes carved out and turned into separated bike/pedestrian paths
  • I'm honestly scared to watch these videos because I think they'll make me sad and I don't want to have any more sad feelings about buildings and development than I already do.

  • somehow i hadn't thought of the idea of making dedicated walking access paths to plazas (i.e. strip malls) before, but it seems so obvious!

    might be more difficult to do for gated communities.  but there are a lot of places already that aren't gated but still have been built with limited arterial access, for which this would make sense.

    also, sidenote: just because communities aren't gated doesn't mean they're bad or poor or full of "undesirable" people.  pretty close to where I live, there's a huge area of million-dollar homes on expansive lots that's all ungated.  minimal or no HOA.

    (on the other hand, if your definition of "undesirable" involves NIMBYs, then maybe those *are* "undesirables", since I know a lot of them were opposing a proposal for a nearby new-construction development to have more housing units.)

  • A...misimplementation of a street calming measure is also a good chance to think about and learn about street calming measures.

    Oh, by the way, at 9:36 you can see why unprotected bicycle lanes don't work.  That car takes the turn a little too sharply and veers into what could be a bike lane.
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