The Street Type that Breaks the Hierarchy

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Check out my NEW Nebula Original series Great Streets. Here's a link to the first episode on Paris' boulevards: nebula.tv/videos/citybeautiful-how-boulevards-changed-paris-forever/
Special thanks to:
- James Tyler
- Julian O'Shea: kzbin.info
Resources on this topic:
The Boulevard Book: Go buy it today: www.amazon.com/Boulevard-Book-Evolution-Multiway-Boulevards/dp/0262600587
www.curbed.com/2022/08/frederick-law-olmsted-eastern-parkway-brooklyn-safe-streets.html
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Produced by Dave Amos and the fine folks at Nebula Studios.
Select images and video from Getty Images.
Black Lives Matter.

[@toin9898]

I didn't even realize this is why Paris is so pleasant to walk around. It doesn't even feel like you're walking through parking lots adjacent to a busy road.

[@ambroiseimbert]

Louise avenue in Brussels is a really good example of this as well.

[@ambroiseimbert]

It even has trams running along the avenue as well.

[@mdhazeldine]

Multi-way boulevards are really common in the Netherlands. I've seen so many arterial roads flanked by local one way streets with parking and bike lanes on each side. They allow fast through traffic to go through unhindered, while providing a safer environment for pedestrians, bike and local traffic. The trees also create a visual and sound barrier for residents that live on that road. I really think this type of design could be the answer to many of the U.S's stroads as you already have the required width. You just have to reconfigure the layout. Another solution that is used in the UK a lot is the bypass road. A road is built around a town centre to carry through traffic, and the old main street is made for local traffic only, or even pedestrianised. This brings life back to the shopping area, while also allowing traffic to pass through the town quite quickly. It's not perfect, but it's better than trying to make a one size fits all stroad.

[@milliedragon4418]

The reason why you don't see it as much in the United States they're definitely are a lot fancy parkways. But state and local governments won't pay for them. For instance we have a parkway where I live that is tree lined on both sides It is very beautiful but it is not paid by the state or local it's paid by the homeowners association. It's basically one of those very nice residential places with golf courses and mansions. Not all of them are mansions, and it does have some apartments, smaller homes, townhouses etc but it's still much more well to do area.

[@badhombre4683]

While parkways are more aesthetically pleasing and provide for multimodal mobility, they encourage high speeds and thus are inherently dangerous and detrimental to the environment (noise, pollution). Bypasses are really the only logical solutions to alleviating traffic through main streets. As far as stroads, I’m not even sure there’s hope for those.

[@Anonymous-sb9rr]

@@badhombre4683 In the Netherlands main streets are usually pedestrianised. The arterials often (not always) run outside of the bussy city cetre, and they are flanked by local streets, if there is enough space for that. This even happens on a lot of small 2 lane arterials. I really don't like to go shopping, or sit on a terrace in a street that has cars going trough it, now that I'm used to pedestrian areas.

[@johanlugthart7782]

I was like, these are quite common, but I would never call them boulevards. And for sure don’t want to sit next to them.

[@snoopyloopy]

Yes, I was about to make the same observation about them being used in The NLs where they work exceptionally well.

[@SparenofIria]

Note: In Buenos Aires, they attempted to address the 9 de Julio issue by converting up to 5-6 lanes of car traffic in some places into BRT. It's apparently much much much safer to cross now.

[@gdlaserboom2795]

Yeah, like 6 years ago they took out 4 lanes of car traffic and made it to BRT. As someone who lives in Buenos Aires, 9 de Julio is still a mess. I mean it’s not that bad as it used to be a couple of years ago, but it’s still a mess lol. Also I find it weird how the most iconic part of my city is a super wide stroady-boulevard that constantly has traffic 😩

[@alejogonzalez4997]

Can confirm. I don't live there, but while visiting, 9 de julio it wasn't too bad to cross. Maybe having to do it daily is a nightmare

[@matiasbarraquero9347]

I'm sorry to tell you that this semi BRT didn't take traffic lanes, but the green spaces in the middle, that's why it didn't fix sheez

[@marcelo.origoni]

@@matiasbarraquero9347 At least it took all the buses from Cerrito/Lima and Irigoyen/Pellegrini.

[@marcelo.origoni]

They main problem is it should be a highway, not a boulevard.

[@zech6846]

Multiuse boulevards are the norm here in Brazil, they separate pedestrians from fast-moving traffic pretty well, but crossing the middle can be hard without stop lights.

[@ViniciusSC10]

I was thinking the same thing when watching the video. I was in Las Vegas and it’s a very difficult place to walk by. San Diego is a more pedestrian friendly experience. But comparing to Brazil, I think here it’s much easier to ditch the car.

[@drewkennerly7029]

Big 24!

[@Thelaretus]

Not everywhere, though. We really do miss them here in the countryside.

[@mrdesmit6038]

A Av. Presidente vargas no Rio seria um boulevard? Pq sempre que eu vou atravessar ela, é uns 2 min só esperando nos sinais

[@andreadabo2840]

​@@Thelaretus Do we? I live in a reasonably big city in the inner country and even with some 200k people we don't seem to have enough traffick to justify a boulevard

[@Arktus]

French captain here: there is actually a precise definition of Boulevard. Historically, it's large streets/avenues built on former battlements locations that were around (old) towns. Now-days a Boulevard is a collector or a arterial ("Boulevard périphérique" = ring road) that aim to avoid the city centers.

[@coleciervo5454]

Boulevards really do combine the best of both worlds. In Cities Skylines I struggle to find ways of building arterials that don't wind up as highways, stroads, or "deserts" with no buildings on them, but doing something like a Boulevard with a central 4-lane two-way road with flanking one-way roads actually sounds like a great idea.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

This version also does a great job of slowing down traffic so that it’s safe for combining with Bike traffic. In my town, they put speed bumps all over the neighborhood roads. As a bicyclist I love this. But I definitely still see drivers trying to treat it like an arterial street and getting mad when it doesn’t work.

[@ripred42]

Yeah, local access roads can act as neighborhood streets that keep the street frontage human scale

[@notmuch_23]

Okay, you've inspired me to start a new city and do this... ...once my treasury gets the funds, that is... ...or I could activate the "unlimited money" mod...

[@carstarsarstenstesenn]

I've been doing boulevards in Cities Skylines, forming rings of green parks and greenery around my cities. I live in Chicago so I make a lot of cities inspired by the Chicago Park Boulevard System. I'm kinda bummed he didn't mention Chicago in this video. Boulevards were a huge part of Burnham's plan for Chicago

[@romanrat5613]

That's why I don't build arterials. If a collector needs an upgrade, my citizens just have to cope as I use eminent domain to bulldoze through their homes and split their neighborhood in half for my traffic-solving urban freeway

[@plangineer1375]

My planning team proposed the multi way boulevard concept for an 8-lane major arterial and state route (Fowler Av) in Tampa. Local government leaders and public response was very positive. But, the FDOT "Environmental" design manager said in an internal meeting: "We're not ever building that." So the concept isn't being considered in the Phase 2 study which will recommend the "Preferred" alternative. My very educated guess is this myopic and biased mindset is quite prevalent among many engineers.

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

Is it myopic, or is it corrupt? Often these kinds of games are played primarily for power. We need to pay engineers more, so we can fire them publicly and humiliatingly whenever they start gaming the system. Only way to fix these problems is terror.

[@ohhgodineedmoore2845]

FDOT can be a joke at times with their strict regulations

[@Distress.]

​@@ohhgodineedmoore2845 they're getting better but still a ways to go

[@InXLsisDeo]

The reason is, doing things right is un-american.

[@felixthecat2786]

Did they even give you a reason as to why they're not "ever building that?"

[@zyoninkiro]

I live in Turin, Italy. Most of the major streets are tree line multi-way boulevards. Many of these were built in the 19th century and give Turin a feel that is vary non-Italian. Rather the traffic flows more like Paris. Recently, the city in partnership with FS (the Italian state railroad) completed a major project to cover a major rail line with a new boulevard.

One of my favourites is Vienna's Ringstraße. Flanked by many landmark government, university, arts and coffeehouse buildings as well as many green parks, moderated by trams and with many parallel, tree-lined pedestrian and cyclist paths, it's a truly great place to be.

[@titusbird6101]

Vienna's Ringstraße is great, but part of the reason for that is that it doesn't serve as a major arterial. At least on its eastern half, there's a major arterial running parallel to it, a little further away from the centre. That's something that I don't really get about this video: to me the example shown from San Francisco is horrible, because of the sheer volume and speed of the cars on it. I don't know where exactly it's located within the city, but really I wouldn't want a road like that in my city centre. When I think of multi-way boulevards I think of streets like Vienna's Ringstraße, or even more so smaller streets like Obere Augartenstraße or Heinestraße (to take examples that happen to be near where I live), where even the middle lanes receive relatively low volumes of traffic, travelling at reasonable speeds.

@@titusbird6101 I've walked along both smaller boulevards you mentioned quite a few times, and they're equally nice places to be. From a North American perspective, in which cars and highways all too often dominate and divide cityscapes, I suppose what they have in San Francisco can be seen as an improvement over the high-speed alternative. That doesn't make it great, however.

[@titusbird6101]

@ Yeah, I guess everything is relative and something like that road in San Francisco might be good as a compromise, or as a stepping stone toward something better.

[@Skip6235]

I live in Vancouver and these are desperately needed. Because we don’t have any urban highways (great!) our arterials have become huge, multi-lane stroads (not great) anywhere outside of downtown. I think turning our main arterials into these types of multi-section boulevards could really go a long way to both reactivating the streetscapes for pedestrians AND improving traffic flow for through-traffic by eliminating all the waiting for people to make turns onto side streets and businesses

[@y11971alex]

What do you think of King Edward?

[@JonnyRay82]

I always dream of them turning 1st Avenue from highway 1 into a beautiful boulevard. They would definitely need to demolish a bunch of houses and businesses to widen. They could more easily make big improvements to Grandview/12th avenue for cycling.

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

Yeah personally I think this kind of road is actually better for replacing stroads then freeways. Octavia Blvd replaced a STUB, which really makes it the exception and not the rule.

[@hirsch4155]

Looking at you, Kingsway

[@lesliengo8347]

I live in Langley BC, right by 200 street. It's a major arterial road that is not pedestrian and cyclist friendly. However, the part I live by has a wide green space filled with plants and a rain garden. We could use more rain gardens here in rainy Vancouver

[@Pinuzzuo]

Boulevards are only valuable from an urbanist perspective if the medians are wide enough that people can comfortably wait or walk on. In NYC, Eastern Parkway is definitely an example of a pretty good one although it could be improved with more pedestrian islands between the travel lanes. There is also Queens Boulevard, which has medians so narrow it does not feel safe to linger on them longer than you need to. Hopefully that will be an improved with a proposed bus lane.

[@16randomcharacters]

There are a bunch in Brooklyn. For example, 3rd Ave underneath the BQE viaduct. Also, you could argue that some of the sunken sections of the BQE and others with parallel local roads function much like boulevards.

[@shawngbrennan9893]

I think Ocean Parkway is pretty nice too

[@mrmaniac3]

Narrow lanes and wide crossing refuges are important elements to a good boulevard. Crosswalk timing should also be multistage and timed well so that crossing can be seamless most of the time, and easy enough to cross in stages otherwise, instead of having to cross a huge stretch of open pavement completely unprotected from cars. Bollards and sturdy traffic light poles can be helpful in enforcing the barrier between cars and pedestrians.

[@16randomcharacters]

@@mrmaniac3 boulards, and also on street parking. No boulards are going to outperform 2+ ton hunks of metal to deter cars from entering the sidewalk.

[@mrmaniac3]

@@16randomcharacters bollards are made of steel and concrete. They are designed to withstand the onslaught of a loaded truck. Bollards will stop a car dead in its tracks.

[@parkmannate4154]

I enjoy seeing things I learned from City Skylines youtubers showing up in actual city planning videos

[@Delibro]

Its really some point that random City Skylines players know better of traffic planning than the US.

[@philipmcniel4908]

@@Delibro C:S actually forces some constraints on the player that aren't realistic. Mainly because the vehicles choose a route without taking traffic into account (even though everyone's phone has Google Maps or Apple Maps nowadays, and it will tell you the fastest way to get to your destination _taking traffic into account,_ not just using the nominal speed limits). This leads to underuse of, say, separate access roads to industrial zones, and causes truck traffic to clog the road into the residential side of town just because it's "faster."

[@Benz2112]

Having grown up a few blocks from the dreaded Queens Boulevard, the aptly named boulevard of death, I've seen the evolution of traffic patterns along it. There has always been the push pull between limiting left turns, but also not diverting too much traffic to certain collector roads. Regardless of how much greenspace you add, there will always be a tear in the social fabric of a neighborhood by having large thoroughfares. Moving lots of cars is just not conducive to the other land uses going on. I always wished they turned the outer lanes into a light rail.

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

That's why I'm a fan of running freeways on the boundaries between the neighborhoods, or through industrial areas. Conduct the long distance traffic around the neighborhood, instead of through it.

[@michaelng2923]

For recent new boulevard construction in New York City, Sheridan Expressway (I-895) was dismantled and converted into Sheridan Blvd in 2019.

[@russellcalhoun9010]

I didn’t realize this until now, but Detroit (of all places) has a multi-way boulevard called West Grand Blvd. It’s not pretty, but it works. And in the suburbs, Woodward Ave has a lot of multi-way functionality as well. It makes the stroadiness a little less bad for pedestrians.

[@MichiganUSASingaporeSEAsia]

Good point

[@thebiologuy2543]

Was thinking about Woodward while watching this video.

[@allws9683]

The problem with a boulevard like West Grand blvd is that is has a hugh, almost 20 metre, middle berm with trees and the 2 driving lanes close to the entrance of housing. Without a seperated parallel access street ! So it is still dangerous like a stroad If you would narrow the middle berm to like 8 metre, put the driving lanes more centre and add a berm/hedge/tree seperated low speed (30kmh/20mph) parallel acces road to the sides it would be a lot more nice. The acces road can also be used for bikes. More so Grand West blvd has junctions and traffic light. In that case I would assume to reduce it from 2+2 to a 1+1 road (with the seperated acces roads to the side. On a YT video by Geert Kloppenburg (with Eng subs) who discusses the Maastunnel in Rotterdam, NL. The Maastunnel is a 2+2 tunnel that can handle 2000 cars per lane per hour max. (With per day 40k vehicles per direction.) Unfortunately that capacity is undone 800 metre beyond the tunnel at a traffic light junction , with a capacity of just 150 cars per lane, per hour !! So basially it has no sense to use 2+2 lanes for cars when there is a bottle neck at 150 capacity. That would also count for West Grand blvd. An extra advantage is that on a split 1+1 road cars can't overhaul and cannot drive faster speeds than the car before them. Also for pedestrians and bicyclists it is easier to cross without getting caught by an overhauling car. So it is safer as well. btw : Woodward Ave is a 5-6 lane Stroad ! nothing more, nothing less . without mid berm, frontage road treelines ! What do you mean with "a lot of multi-way functionality" ? 🙄 The side walks , which might seduce you to risk your life crossing the street ? What they did with Cass Ave looks a lot better ! With the use of just mostly paint defining cycling lanes, protected with painted vehicle park lots ..... (Might have used traffic islands though ...)

[@angelm3670]

theres a few blvds in chicago however they're in mainly residential neighborhoods, but they're super nice and give the blocks nice little communal spaces

[@VideoChasca]

Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City is like this, and it's truly beautiful and iconic. It was built, indeed, inspired by the French.

[@ethandanielburg6356]

Paseo de la Reforma is indeed beautiful and iconic, but when I was there, I felt it was not the nicest environment for pedestrians because there’s just so much car traffic. And crossing the roundabouts as a pedestrian can take a while. That said, Paseo de la Reforma nowadays has an excellent bike lane and a really cool BRT line that uses double-decker buses and provides excellent views of the street.

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

I've heard some of the boulevards in Mexico City were actually built by the Aztecs!

[@sergiodepablocalatrava6338]

Probably, Actually inspired by Paseo Del Prado, Madrid

[@humanecities]

These boulevards could be a decent compromise! I great up on a boulevard and have the frontage-type road was great for street hockey - despite living on a busy street. Obviously there are better options, but I don’t think these are a terrible step (at least for some areas).

[@AaronSmith-sx4ez]

Part of what makes Paris Paris...is not just their use of boulevards...but also their block types. In most modern western countries, the block type is a "square", but in Paris "triangle blocks" are common. The latter has signicant advantages...it provides more surface area access to the buildings which in turn makes things like walk paths, bike paths, metro access points, and one-way roads more viable. One-way roads are a key feature of Paris and other walkable cities. They improve density, allow for synchronized stop-lights, and reduce slow/dangerous cross traffic turns. IMO...one-way roads, narrow streets, and triangular blocks are more so the reason Paris is special...and not so their overly wide boulevards.

[@henrymalacho4837]

Really??

[@Westlander857]

Tucson kind of just did this with our Broadway boulevard. It used to be a stroad that was flanked by nothing but parking lots with very limited pedestrian access. They just completely redid the road to make it more of a destination. They got rid of most of the parking lots and replaced them with wide sidewalks, renovated old buildings to make them walkable shopping destinations, added lots of plants, and added plenty of crosswalks with HAWK lights. They even moved a row of old Pueblo homes there that will be converted into shops and restaurants. It looks and feels a million times better than before. Excited to see what the future holds.

[@lamegaming9835]

why did they add hawk lights? couldn’t they just make the street safe to cross?

[@mk3a]

@@lamegaming9835 could have been worse

[@Westlander857]

@@lamegaming9835 I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that the traffic engineers didn’t want to lower the speed limit, as it’s still a busy street used by many commuters. Also, unfortunately, a lot of drivers just don’t pay attention unless a traffic light is in front of them. A lot of pedestrians here have been injured or killed because of that. So HAWK lights are the next best/safest option.

[@lamegaming9835]

@@Westlander857 exactly, instead of caring about pedestrians, they care about the throughput of cars. accommodate pedestrians, only as long as it doesn't impact drivers because we all know if you can't afford a car at absolute best your overlaid onto the existing car infrastructure and at worst your completely forgotten about its not "pedestrian safety", its "people are walking here so lets make it so that their not messing with the car drivers"

[@enjoyslearningandtravel7957]

Wow! I didn’t know Tucson did that

[@bobbycrosby9765]

I lived in SF for 7 years - Octavia is a very short segment - about 1/4 a mile - that acts to connect you to one of the few ways to get onto the freeway and out of SF. And despite being 1/4 a mile, it still had 3 or so traffic lights on it. Multiple neighborhoods used it to get out of the city. While I'm sure its better than the alternative, the traffic the thing created was immense, and it regularly backed up into other city streets.

[@afbene1]

Yeah, I was surprised to see Octavia being heralded as a “solution” when it has such serious capacity limitations that lead to heavy traffic. I suppose with the 101/80 on ramp, it was never intended to be such a main thoroughfare. But now that it is, the multiuse elements only seem to exacerbate the traffic issues.

[@LadyNoriko]

One of my favorite streets is Winkelriedstrasse in Bern, Switzerland. It's the main street to enter the city from the autobahn. 2 car lanes, dedicated bus lanes, detached bike paths and wide sidewalks. And it has trees on both sides and it's so beautiful in autumn.

[@jamesjudge3891]

Olmstead also designed a collar multiway boulevard and park system in Chicago. My favorite is Logan Boulevard, which runs west from Western Ave. to Milwaukee Ave.

[@veggieboyultimate]

I won’t understand why urban planners will reject designs that are obviously safe and efficient and accept those that are dangerous and harmful to people.

[@SkaN2412]

I love this balanced approach. We won't convince car people to reduce their space any time soon, no matter how much we fight and beg, so being balanced is our only chance at bargaining safe liveable spaces. Thanks for bringing the attention to this!

[@SkaN2412]

I actually remember visiting Paris this year for the first time and walking on one of these boulevards, feeling totally safe and with my dignity intact, only to realize later that it's a street probably wider than a North American stroad with less traffic and more life. Forgot to include this in the original comment lol

[@LordApophis100]

Multi-way boulevards are also very common in China. Saw them in very different size Cities and Towns. Also saw them occasionally in Italy.

[@federicomarintuc]

9 de julio Avenue has improved a lot over the last 10 years. Now it has 6 crossings in the typical section an I believe every stretch has its own independent pedestrian signal and no left turn for cars. I will be there next week and would check it out. Also, if you call it a boulevard here you'll be take as a crazy person lol we call it an urban highway or an urban travesy (more like an urban travesty). A boulevard here is a two way street with a green median wider than the streets themselves Ps: you should check the renewal of Corrientes avenue (the stroad between the two shots of 9J avenue). During the day half of the street is a busway and the other half is for general traffic. During theater nights the general traffic section is closed for pedestrian use

[@austinjones8976]

Washington, DC is in the early stages of redesigning Pennsylvania Ave into something like this. It’s currently waaaay too wide for the amount of car traffic it gets and they’re trying to be smart about how transit and bikes get through there, and just making it a more vibrant place in general.

[@TheBritalianJob]

In Florence there is a giant 6 lane ring road circling the historical centre which cuts the core off from its surrounding urban areas. The city is renovating it into a boulevard but with the addition of two tram tracks down what was once the the two car lanes either side of the central reservation, reducing the number of lanes on each side down from 3 to 2. The tram lines are a great way to justify the reduction of car lanes, and in turn greatly increases pedestrian foot traffic for all of the business alongside the boulevard. Not to mention the general facelift that the street furniture is getting making the public space much more inviting.

[@myowncomputerstuff]

It's awesome to see transportation design solutions that _aren't_ unapologetically adversarial to automobiles. I feel like the default proposition these types of channels always make is to remove traffic lanes, remove parking, and discourage non-public transportation in general. It's proposed with the best intentions, but it's really impractical, idealistic, inorganic, and tone-deaf to what most normal Americans actually _want_ in their community. As a traffic planner myself, this is a plan I can actually see the general public unifying behind in support.

[@linuxman7777]

Boulevards are really just improved stroads, which is nice, but I still call a stroad a stroad. it is good for large cities that would take too long to cross with regular slow streets , but for everywhere else complex slow streets in town, and fast simple roads between towns is the way to go.

[@Aurelien_]

This huge space could be put to better use by putting public transport in there. I'm talking trams, bike lanes, the whole package. Reduces traffic anyway.

[@fallenshallrise]

Exactly. They took a 6 lane elevated highway and just spread those lanes across ground level and even added 2 more lanes of parking. All the "green space" is narrow padding between speeding car lanes. I'm sure that in the drawings for this project there were people sitting on those benches but in reality no one really wants to spend any time unless they are trapped waiting for the light to change.

[@jaftem2x]

When you talked about Olmsted and central park it reminded me - Olmsted had a grand design for LA before LA grew into a massive metropolitan area. The city of LA begged for them to to design the future of the city. Olmsted finally agreed and created one of the most ambitious city design projects in the history of the country that included a network of parks throughout the LA basin that would put Boston's emerald necklace to shame. But the plan called for a park authorities that would rival the authority of the city, and the city council scrapped the plan like it never happened. Probably the most tragic bit of history for the city of LA. City Beautiful should do a video on this.

[@speedytrain9306]

Great video! I live in the SF Bay Area and have drivan down Octavia Boulevard many times. Prior to watching this video, I would always look at the side streets and think, why don't they just turn it into a BRT lane, or a proper two way bike path. Now I understand the reasons for the street design. Thank you!

[@onesob13]

MnDOT in Minnesota is doing a study of I-94, the interstate highway that connects downtown Minneapolis to downtown Saint Paul to consider ways to reconstruct the freeway. We have a local compaign (which has some steam behind it) that wants MnDOT to consider tearing down the freeway between the downtowns, filling in the trench, and redeveloping the land as a multi-lane boulevard like the ones described in this video. The proposed boulevard would feature a central dedicated transit way, two lanes of thru-traffic in each direction, two medians with pedestrian walkways (or could be developed as residential or commercial buildings), and outer local-access/parking lanes.

[@commentor3485]

Cant wait for for the 494/694 loop to be even more clogged. (Or they will have to build a freeway from St Cloud to Cameron Wisconsin as the new bypass)

[@onesob13]

@@commentor3485 MnDOT's own studies show that I-94 between the two downtowns is virtually all local anyway (i.e. originates in Minneapolis or Saint Paul and also terminates in Minneapolis or Saint Paul), whereas thru-traffic already tends towards I-694. So traffic would either remain in the boulevard out of necessity or move to another adjacent local route like University or Lake/Marshall, but it would be unrealistic that it would divert to I-694 or I-494, since those freeways are out of the way if you're coming from either of the Twin Cities and going to the other or even staying in town

[@onesob13]

@@commentor3485 and I say this as someone who lives downtown in MPLS and travels on I-94 to visit family in Saint Paul every weekend. I doubt that trip would be any greater than 5 - 10 minutes longer, whether I'm on the proposed boulevard or detouring to MN 36

[@clydelaz]

The ad I got at the beginning of this video was an ad for a car dealership where a woman complained that she hated the subway because it stank and was inconvenient and she wanted to buy a car.

[@EvanKCorrigan]

Nice! It would be great to see a video in the future auditing LA's stroads and multi-model transportation retrofits :)

[@crash.override]

I seem to recall NotJustBikes covering a very similar approach. The Netherlands avoids stroads by keeping properties and highways separate. Properties connect to local access roads parallel to highways, and ramps connecting the two are only periodic. I guess the main difference is to what level tree usage is bound up in the concept?

[@rockoutdave411]

The Bronx also has Pelham Parkway and a few other roads modeled after Paris’ boulevards. I know you mentioned Brooklyn, but I know for sure in the Bronx the lanes used for cars is greater than the original design. The Central Park of Pelham parkway is underutilized. I’ve always thought it would be a great space for light rail or even a right of way for subway style service that could… cross the Hudson River into Jersey towns. Makes too much sense for the USA :-(

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

In general, I think the Bronx has HUGE potential. The right developer could make it an incredible place to be.

[@bruhbutwhytho]

​@@alexanderfretheim5720yeah, but it can't be turned into another Brooklyn.

[@cartermoberg3092]

Massive boulevards are the standard for our major arterial streets in Detroit, most all the major "spokes" radiating from the city center are boulevards, most famously Woodward Ave.

[@stanyu2029]

The Parisian boulevard looks clearly applicable to at-grade highways that run through smaller cities, a means to slow traffic down while adding efficient space for parking & nonvehicular travel. It’s a tougher proposition for retrofitting large urban cores with a lot of congestion & cross traffic. For example, in Los Angeles there just isn’t space along Wilshire Blvd or Vermont Ave, two heavily traveled main streets, to run local lanes alongside arterial lanes. It could be done on Van Nuys Blvd.

[@BluePieNinjaTV]

These types of road are very common here in Australia. Basically all multi-lane highways that have commerical uses on either side are boulevards of this type.

[@elizabethdavis1696]

There’s a KZbin video by “rethink I-35” advocating turning that road into a boulevard in Austin Texas it’s good I recommend it

[@ChristianMay21]

I volunteer with Rethink35!! We saw this video and couldn't agree more!

[@AngelGonzalez-yb6gu]

Well, the 9 de Julio avenue in Buenos Aires is not as bad as portrayed in this video for a few reasons: - First, the avenue is very functional since a lot of traffic goes through, including tens of bus lines, cars and several subway lines go under it to bring hundreds of thousands of people from the suburbs to the downtown, so is not just individual cars carrying one person each. - Secondly, pedestrians can actually avoid crossing the avenue if they use the subway walk-throughs that go underneath, but many of them are too lazy to take the stairs (the BA subway is really old and some parts don't use mechanical stairways). Plus, in the avenue there are 3 or 4 stops for pedestrians. - Third, this avenue is the main artery an amazing mix-used zone that brings thousands of people to use the local work places and touristic attractions. Let alone that many nearby boulevards (like Lavalle or Florida) are really close to the Obelisco and are pedestrian-oriented. And, most importantly, that area is aesthetically BEAUTIFUL. I mean if you take bus/subway lines that go through the 9 de Julio you could reach within half an hour some iconic areas like Retiro, the Presidential Palace, the Congress Palace, Colon Theater, Puerto Madero or La Boca. That's why I say in cases like this, big avenues make sense because we are talking of dense populated and mix-used areas and they are more useful to the people than the "strodes" you see in North America. With all this, I mean to say this big avenue is actually MORE FUNCTIONAL to the people than cars. If you say Paris is a good example to follow, well, Buenos Aires did exactly that in the early XX century, when Argentina was a wealthy country and her leadership decided to bring hundreds or even thousands of architects and urbanists from Europe and urbanized the city following the blueprints of Paris and London. Is no coincidence that Buenos Aires looks so European. Other than this, I agree with your content.

[@a.j.santiago303]

NYC has a few of these boulevard types in the outer boroughs: Eastern & Ocean Parkways in Brooklyn, Queens Blvd. in Queens, and Grand Concourse and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. Philadelphia's Roosevelt Blvd. is another one.

[@hans-rudi-der-letzte]

Could you make a future video about the "L.A. River Masterplan"? I think it's an interesting project, especially for the US. :)

[@theorangebuilding]

Never forget the Chicago Boulevard system. Filled with usable green space and, in places, actually functions more as a park than road (Palmer Square being a perfect example). The one major issue is that it lags bus coverage at points.

[@theorangebuilding]

Also 100 years old, filled with spave efficient side road parking, and connects the 3 crown jewel western parks with greenspace.

[@Nativityin6lack]

was looking for this. some very beautiful homes on logan.definitely my favorite street, makes driving through so much more pleasant!

[@gingermany6223]

Taipei has a really good example of boulevards including a concentric traffic circle where two boulevards meet. Look for Renai Dunnan Traffic Cir, Da’an District.

[@sollamander2206]

I always wanted there to be a test to see if an Olympic sprinter could cross Avenida 9 de Julio in one light cycle.

[@doxiadis7122]

These type of street is really common in Indonesia. Apart from separating local and arterial traffic, they also separate cars and motorcycles.

[@FunkBison]

Buffalo, NY also has a Parkway system designed by Olmstead. The adjacent neighborhoods are still the most popular inner city neighborhoods to this day and a major asset of the city. Better still, they were never mangled like the Parkways in Brooklyn.

[@MSTS33]

A few things though : 1/ a bike path should still be provided along the sidewalk, as a boulevard side-street could support some heavy trucks 2/ the central roadway should be as narrow as possible, ideally 2x1 lane outside junctions 3/ the side-street mustn't provide a shortcut for the main roadway. So you may have to control the exit of the side-street and have it merge with the main roadway ahead of any junction Otherwise, great video!

[@ramakrishnavemulapalli4526]

The city I come from in India, Hyderabad, these are omnipresent. We call the side access roads “service roads”. Service roads provide parking and access to shops, while the main road is to designed to move passing traffic through.

[@ButteryBao]

The reason say Canada has so few boulevards is maintenance. Snow clearing and salt kill trees planted along the road, and the trees also end up being a dangerous hazard for motorists. You can either have a fast road (60 km/h) with few trees adjacent to the curb, or a slow road with lots of trees (40km/h). Now if you put in curbside trams then you’ll have lots more opportunity to plant trees, but curbside trams require density which most Canadian cities won’t get for another 20 years.

[@francorossi1763]

The footage of Avenida 9 de Julio is from before 2013. It has change a lot since. Also, there's a subway that have the same course. I recommend you to read a bit more about it, it's very interesting!

[@yungmarsupial]

As someone who live in the Sf Bay Area, Octavia is something of a pain to drive on and use, mostly because it gets a ton of traffic from both the freeway and Market street, which runs perpendicular to Octavia. I do think that Boulevards do offer a lot of benefits over the ubiquitous arterial, but unfortunately I don’t think Octavia isn’t as great as you make it look. The tale end of Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley looks a lot more like the theoretical boulevard you animated and works a lot better than other parts of the road that adhere to the arterial road format.

[@Fools_Requiem]

Crystal City in Arlington, VA had a one sided boulevard for route 1. It starts as a spur route highway before turning into a 6 lane divided highway with a side street allowing access to the apartment complex there. It's not a very long stretch, and they made it shorter when they chopped off part of the side road. If you're new to the area, it's confusing as fuck because they could only make it so that the side street going south was along side the lanes on the divided highway going north. The biggest issue is that you often have people in crossing streets turn onto the wrong street, and the stop lights last forever. They used to have a pedestrian tunnel go under the highway, but it always smelled like piss and it was only ever used by the hobos. It didn't work. What needs to be done is to divided highways with limited access on and off the road or make it like the boulevard suggested but only have one directional access in sections between crossing streets on the highway, and do not have the side street intersect. Also need to make left hand turn lanes in accessible to traffic coming onto the highway from the side street but provide u-turn options down the road.

[@zzing]

I noticed patterns like this in the smaller centres in North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

[@alexanderfretheim5720]

At the height of the Bakken oil boom, ND really prioritized making their cities more desirable to millennials, who were the young people then and, in 2013, we're a higher percentage of NDs population than any other state.

[@daveshel47]

There's a great example of a new multi-way boulevard just outside of Seattle in the suburban city of Bothell, WA. Just a few years ago, the city redesigned State Route 527 (also called Bothell Way) into a really nice multi-way boulevard as part of a larger re-do of they city center along with a bunch of new well-designed development projects.

[@andrewrussack8647]

Check out Melbourne, Australia. A number of major roads out of the city have a boulevard style, and include trams in the centre median.

[@spiderpickle3255]

I could imagine this working fairly well in Denver on many of the stroads there, at least.

[@jl3782]

I live on the Grand Concourse in NYC and there is so much potential for it! A couple of the primary issues right now are that pedestrian islands are too small (which is being addressed), people still drive too fast along the center arterial, and biking is still quite dangerous from a lack of dedicated bike infrastructure (there are bike lanes but no physical protection, which means that bike lanes are often taken over by double parked cars). Another issue is that merging between the center lanes and the local service road is via haphazard merge lanes, which creates a lot of potential for vehicle-vehicle and vehical-bike collisions. That being said, despite its warts (especially in actual execution), i think that the boulevard has more potential compared with stroads!

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

The street I (mainly) grew up on is called a boulevard, even though it’s only two lanes and only has single family homes, one apartment complex (the one I lived in), an old folks home, a rec center and a few businesses.

[@hagencarter8834]

Love seeing Olmsted and landscape architecture get a shoutout on a popular channel like this

[@d1234as]

Multiway boulevard is very common in Turin, Italy, where almost all the arterials are multiway boulevard, or at least, boulevard with trees coverage that also reduce the road's temperatures during hot summers. In Turin we call them "corso" (plural "corsi") and they are typical of Turin's cityscape together with grid-city structure.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

i think the point is that a boulevard is 2 items on the list at once, and i think it would benefit most streads, seggregating the access roads away on slower speed side streets

[@duerandaggi]

St. Pete, FL offers an interesting approach for cities in which no street is wide enough to do this. Central avenue is for slow traffic with parking on both sides & wide sidewalks with businesses, and 1st Ave N & 1st Ave S are one way streets in opposite directions, and cars can move faster but there is still parallel parking and businesses along the way.

[@snackums996]

The city of Torino is made up of mostly multi way boulevards. Traffic moved so quickly it was amazing.

[@L0VTX_H8CA]

Lubbock TX does this on a few different arterials, but they don’t run the whole length of either. And the two largest examples of this connect only to residential areas, so where the traffic is the lightest already.

[@Beachdudeca]

There are several boulevards in San Francisco. , Sunset Blvd that runs from Lincoln Way - Sloat , Park Presidio Blvd that runs from Lake St - Fulton St, in addition to Octavia Blvd

[@Ref.chavez]

Ayyy!!!! Cathedral city! Actually from Indio but near by.

[@relativityboy]

At 1:37 - The effect *is* quite nice. I can't help but notice the Ghost bike right there on the left, and that the cars look to be going at least 5 over. For those who don't know - Ghost bikes are put up at the intersection where a cyclist died.

[@homelander33333]

Can confirm. I love highways running straight through my city!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I don’t know if I’m really in favour of boulevards because they’re so car centric. Sure, it’s much nicer than an arterial for pedestrians, and the trees can provide noise insulation, but they still have many lanes of cars and get full of traffic, so it’s polluting and noisy. I think a much better system is to just have a bypass for the majority of through traffic, with smaller roads for the local streets, but if a bunch of traffic lanes are needed multi-lane boulevards with side roads are a lot friendlier than stroads.

[@sven_ftw]

I just want to note that at 1:15 in your video @City Beautiful, there is a Ghost Bike visible while you describe this street/road amalgamation as "quite nice". The Ghost Bike signifies that a cyclist died at that spot. Maybe its not so nice, or maybe the effect is misleading people in terms of feeling safer than they are..

[@BrianEstabrook]

Thank you - I scrolled through the comments to ensure that someone said this. That street is clearly not safe for everyone.

[@Zzzeeetttaaa]

There were so many gorgeous buildings demolished to get that huge boulevard 9 de Julio. And the loss of architectural heritage continues at an alarming rate today in Buenos Aires.

[@ahotdj07]

A boulevard is essentially a wide street (or avenue), with a median through the middle. That is the only difference between a street or avenue from a boulevard. The median does not need to incorporate trees to make it a boulevard. That is just a bonus touch.

[@johngessing7686]

You might want to look at Texas interstate systems I-35 from Dallas to Austin to San Antonio, and I 45 from Dallas to Houston. When these interstate highways enter into metro areas they have a network of "feeder" roads. Single direction roadways running parallel to the major freeways. These roadways have access to local business, and sometimes apartment complexes. This also makes your exit ramps and on-ramps 1 or 2 miles in length so you're not exiting right into the main roadway. It's an interesting concept that I personally have only experienced on Texas freeways.

[@fernbedek6302]

The diagonal parking bit reminds me of part of Westdale in Hamilton Ontario.

[@paulmentzer7658]

No comment on why Napoleon III redesigned Paris to have Boulevards? It was to make it easier to use cannon against any anti government revolutionary uprising in Paris. The narrow streets of Paris of 1789 and 1848 restricted the use of cannons against revolutionaries, but these new broad Boulevards permitted the max use of cannons against such revolutionaries.

[@A.Martin]

we have some of our smaller towns that were built with a major road passing through the middle that have a small local road parallel where all the houses are built off. Usually this is near the edge of the town, the older part of the town is built right on the main road.

[@lucas_geerts]

the city of boulder Colorado has some interesting suburban boulevards, like south Broadway. the side roads make it a lot more pleasant and safer to cycle, but these roads are excessively wide

[@phs125]

The highest throughput road in a city that I've seen personally is, Peenya flyover in Bengaluru. It has a 4 lane viaduct for vehicles going in and out of city. And on the ground, a 4 lane road with barriers on each side so you can't stop and it acts like a highway. It's also wider than typical 4 lane city roads here. And beyond the barriers, 2 lanes each on either sides, which have parking space and access to shops on either sides, and connections to smaller streets which go off from there. And the metro viaduct also runs parallel to the flyover... Sounds pretty much like a boulevard with extra features. Minus the greenery.

[@chevrex]

What is being described for a solution is what was once Mercury Boulevard in Newport News, Virginia - circa 1980s, although started earlier than that. They have since removed the local access roads. They even once had a rotary or two - now gone. The relatively dense original development now appears to be completely gone. (I say appears because I have not been there in many years and am only looking at satellite images.)

[@nathanwu6296]

Many Chinese cities have this style of road, and they're able to efficiently handle large amounts of surface traffic with extreme populations densities.

[@iamleoooo]

I believe China has less congested road compare to several years ago?

[@korcommander]

Have you seen the roads in China?

[@dylanhobbs6249]

Oh heck yeah! My local stroad finally made a City Beautiful video @ 3:05

[@israeldelarosa5461]

I’m kinda sad that you didn’t mention Chicago here. Chicago has a VAST network of Boulevards that also double as major arterials while also serving as connectors for all of the city’s major parkways. You’ve got Garfield Boulevard, Western Boulevard, Douglass Boulevard, Independence Boulevard, California Boulevard, Sacramento Boulevard, Kedzie Boulevard, Hamlin Boulevard, Humboldt Boulevard, Logan Boulevard, Washington Boulevard, and Diversey Parkway. Oh and there’s also some minor ones that pop up like the Jackson Boulevard District and the Midway Plaisance.

[@marcelloarrigo3312]

I would love to see a video about Buenos Aires’s main boulevard called “avenida 9 de julio”. It’s the widest street in the world. I’ve been really amazed by it when I went there a couple months ago

[@LucarioBoricua]

This type of configuration is rather common in many large Latin American cities, especially Hispanoamerican capitals.

[@JH-pe3ro]

Something about the idea of reconfiguring the parking lots struck me: Why not raise the lane around each entry and exit? One of the biggest conflict points of stroads comes from difficulty merging into and out of the traffic; oftentimes destinations are slightly off-grade from the road which means the cars "enter slow and leave fast" or vice versa; speed is fundamentally unpredictable around the right-hand lane. Adding what would essentially be frequent speed humps along that lane calms it while still preserving the lane's function in heavy traffic.

[@DerekHarkness]

I live on a street that matches your definition of a multiway boulevard. We have mixed parking and pedestrian, verge, dedicated pedestrian, verge, mixed bike and local traffic, verge, two lanes each way for cars, then the repeat on the other side for bikes, parking, and pedestrian. The whole thing is flanked by shops and restaurants. It is about 230 feet from side to side. Within the blocks, where the housing lies, is fully pedestrian with parking in basements under the buildings. Unfortunately, the city has been gradually widening major routes and removing the verges to create stroads. I was worried earlier this year when I saw construction fencing going up along the street sides and machines digging up the verges. However, when they finished work I found that they had actually removed some of the parking, widened the pedestrian zone, and added park benches and planters.

[@Cyrus992]

With roundabouts, you need fewer lanes.

[@cardenasr.2898]

We have those types of multi-lane boulevards in México City and Guadalajara, usually the lateral lanes are used for public transit and access to buildings, while the central lanes are pretty much arterial roads. They are way better streets than those wide stroads or highways, both for drivers and for pedestrians

[@ThePredator32]

I was about to say we call those Parkways here in NYC and then he mentions it. Good on yah City Beautiful.

[@danielb2286]

Airport Blvd in Mobile, AL is a multi-way boulevard but with zero of the benefits. Huge parking lot set backs, zero green space, suicidal pedestrian crossing. Definitely helps minimize slowdowns due to cars slowing down to turn off the main arterial lanes though.

[@Axonteer]

I would love a video or even series on space constraints. In switzerland often due to well. how the city is built, you cant just build a wider road (to create e.g. pedestrian lanes etc. easily).. At least i would find that very interesting to hear some challanges that need to be tacklet when space is at a premium, everywhere, even on highways going around the city (e.g. due to law) .

[@did5177]

One problem with boulevards is that they still should be paired with public transit options (in larger cities) to try and reduce traffic flow and increase pedestrian safety. Take one look at Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia for an example of a boulevard that, while being better than a stroad, is still a bit of a nightmare for the community due to high driving speeds and high traffic numbers that make it a very dangerous road to both drive on and cross. There's been talk for nearly a century of building a subway line under the boulevard to try and reduce traffic and provide better connectivity to the corridor, but I don't think anyone expects it to actually happen. While boulevards are, in theory, a great idea, they can absolutely still be implemented in ways that are not really any better than a stroad for the local community.

[@ryanjohnston9313]

I lived a block from here last summer. It really was a lovely version on a large street in the city. However, the traffic on it in rush hour was horrendous. Good thing I took the bus to work!

[@Neymarinet]

we have something like this where i live, but because we're backwards the side road (singular) has almost nothing on it, it's basically a glorified bus lane

[@JakubAdamus]

As an European I consider boulevard as a big street with markets on both sides and no CARS at all. US boulevard is still car centric.

[@MrCalls1]

If you want to fix the tree/dendritic road network problem you can add vines. Vines wrap around the the twigs, and connect different branches too each other, through circuitous and filtered bridges for different animals. And flanked boulevards actually work really well, with a fully enclosing vine, where it’s connected into the twigs and forms a coat around the central trunk, allowing access to the streets which allowing the trunk roads to flow through uninterrupted. Edit- ivy might be better for boulevards