Re:Stroads and Strails
by dragonwriter on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @02:12PM
(#19445077)
> Yes, and we shouldn’t put at-grade highways through the middle of city neighborhoods
We generally don't. Arterial roads—what was being discussed—are typically between neighborhoods forming a widely-spaced network, from which a dense network of smaller roads branch off which are the roads “through the middle of city neighborhoods”.
That's what the word “arterial” means.
I grew up in Southern CA, and the way cities there are crisscrossed by super-wide 6-lane roads (and every destination is surrounded by parking lots) is very disruptive to anything but a car-dominated lifestyle/culture. In many cities people almost exclusively travel by car, even though the weather is pleasant throughout the year. As a consequence lives are heavily scheduled and people spend little time talking to their neighbors.
I also spent significant time growing up in a colonial city in southern Mexico, designed around narrow streets with little available parking. The cultural difference was stark: in the Mexican city people walked everywhere and it was impossible to go anywhere without running into multiple friends in the street.