mindstalk | good stroads (Reply)

I've been reading Marohn's Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, and he brought up an idea of a "good stroad", using Champs-Elysees as an example. But it's been redesigned, so I think CDMX Paseo de la Reforma works. https://www.google.com/maps/@19.427597,-99.1666869,18.25z/data=!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu

Basically separating the road and street functions. Outer lane / frontage road / service road acts as a safe local street, 1-2 lanes one way, mildly protected bike path, intersections with all the perpendicular streets. Then inside you have a wide road, 6 lanes + bus lanes, with vehicle intersections only when it crosses other major avenues. Separating the two are wide pedestrian spaces/boulevards. There are pedestrian crosswalks, helped by a road median that's flat at the crosswalk to be a refuge, but hostile elsewhere to discourage random jaywalks. Not necessarily crosswalk lights, but given the limited-access, I think the lights further down suffice for providing safe breaks.

I lived in the area for a couple of months, and yeah it worked. There was some barrier effect from the road -- it's so wide! -- but I wasn't that discouraged from crossing (wait for light-induced break, cross to refuge, wait for next break; crossings every 150 meters or less), and I think it did feel safe. And walking along the boulevard was pleasant, far better than a US stroad with narrow sidewalk, though I can't speak for the NOx levels I might have been breathing.

(Champs-Elysees has since had its outer streets fully pedestrianized.)

Marohn also mentions the Esplanade in Chico, California, as a much more modest version of the same idea, e.g. https://maps.app.goo.gl/AH1ZQUBaYb5nTNfr5 and https://maps.app.goo.gl/9jbF6uGEai3z7SCH9 Interior four lanes of road, directions separated by median, then a much thinner planting strip, then outer street and parking and sidewalk. Not as big, also not as good -- the median at crosswalks, with turn lanes, I think would feel less safe than the Mexican refuges -- but you can see the similarity.

So that provides another option for upgrading existing stroads. Turn the outer lanes into more local streets and the inner lanes into more separated roads for through traffic. Though you still need crossings, and safe pedestrian refuges between the traffic directions.

Note that in a US context, this setup separates the road part not just from intersections with local streets, but from driveways, which now open onto the narrow service road. This allows the road part to be good at its job, moving cars quickly between places without complex interruptions.

Also note some terminology disagreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad#Champs-%C3%89lys%C3%A9es_comparison

Unlike Marohn, however, Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes does not categorize such traffic situations as a "stroad", but as "a road with streets on either side to access houses".[30] Taking the Nieuwe Dedemsvaartweg (Provincial road N377) outside Nieuwleusen and the Keizer Karelweg [nl] (s108) in Amstelveen in the Netherlands as examples, he used the fact that access from the middle to the sides is very restricted (through a limited number of roundabouts) to argue that they are three separate ways: the middle is a road, the sides are streets; there is no "stroad".