One of those roads splits my neighborhood into two clear halves with each half only access by one artery, so that commuters don't go gunning through the neighborhood.
The system is great for directions and general movement of people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation
We had IVC as a topic in school, vaguely remember it being mentioned, could be wrong.
Of course we're not going back to a pre-car world, but I feel like even advocating for relatively minor changes like protected bike lanes or limiting car access in city centers gets you labeled a maximalist.
Drivers have a countrywide pedestrian-free transportation network (the interstate highway system) but there is practically no place at all in the US that you can walk or especially bike for transportation without frequent potential conflict with cars. And even small steps towards establishing such spaces meet fierce opposition.
This is a great observation, and it immediately suggests a vision: An interstate pedestrian path system, and an interstate bicycle network.
The Park Service is already imagining these things, but many of the "trails" are just marked sections of automobile-road. They don't have the resources to go further, but we should go further.
Define minimum standards. The most important is physical separation from vehicle traffic. Mere paint or bollards is insufficient. Ideally some limited infrastructure like occasional benches and water fountains. Fire Robert Moses and put Charles Olmstead in charge.
The funny thing is, when you create nice environments, people want to be in them. A market is created. All of a sudden, cyclists are passing through. I can run a little cafe that caters to them. Commerce happens. Yes, much of it's leisure-oriented, but that's still GDP.
Yeah, that would be a nice part of it. And indeed, the Netherlands and Belgium have such things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_highway
Of course, my reference to the interstate highway system was mostly meant to illustrate the current imbalance. But just as drivers need to leave the interstates to get to their final destinations, so too would cyclists. So it's still important to have safe walking/cycling routes on local streets too, because ultimately that's where we all start and end our journeys.
It won't be possible to completely separate people/bikes/cars in all of these places, but thankfully there are a lot of designs around the world that we can take inspiration from, and with careful planning you can prioritize cars and bikes on different streets so they don't interact as much. But in the US, we're basically not giving anything but cars a serious chance at this point.
But you can humanize the grid a little:
https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/pentomino...
https://tilings.math.uni-bielefeld.de/substitution/domino/
>I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other.
In its early days, StrongTowns made a big deal out of arguing that parking should always be put behind commercial buildings instead of in front of them, so the storefront reaches the sidewalk. They've spent less time talking about this now because it attracts vitriol from the people who want to get rid of parking altogether. Unfortunately, it seems like the loud people have found the urbanism discourse.
But grids themselves aren't necessarily bad. One can imagine a street grid as a trellis, on top of which life is able to grow in abundance. Alexander and Jacobs both didn't seem to have a problem with grids and right angles, only with poor uses of such.
For example, Jacobs talks about long blocks which prevent cross-mingling between parallel streets. She also describes how staggering streets with dog-legs and other obstructions can improve neighbourhoods by slowing traffic.
> the street network design largely seems to be on autopilot with very few opportunities for a change in direction
You can't have it both ways. The solution to a tragedy of the commons is to manage the commons. How can you say that you dislike master plans, but you want a planned design!? Architects pouring their heart and soul into a building's design is a good thing, but city planners pouring their heart and soul into a neighborhood's design is a bad thing!?
One reason it's impossible to do anything is because large-scale planning is unfairly villainized as "inefficient big government intervention", and here you are villainizing it, while simultaneously wishing for intervention (from, who else? Government!)
We have already figured out how to build beautiful buildings in any number of styles from many eras. That's because a building is a discrete entity whose design is managed by one group of people, who can form a relationship with an architect who pours their heart and soul into the design.
A street network, on the other hand, is managed by successive governments staffed by much more disinterested operators, and often by different governments who may be working at cross purposes. I'm not saying there should be a master plan (I actually don't like those) but rather that the logistics of designing a street network are much, much harder than for a single building, however you go about it.
I also consider the harmonization of automobile and pedestrian traffic to be an open problem. Maximalists on both sides just talk past each other. Car-oriented development is bad, but at the same time we aren't going back to a pre-car world.
Whether your model is Brasilia (modern) or Cayala (traditional), there are just so few opportunities to actually think about the design of the street network of a city. Street networks are just taken as given and then architects try to make the best of them. That's not a criticism of architects or city planners; the street network design largely seems to be on autopilot with very few opportunities for a change in direction. And for established cities, changing the network is nearly impossible.