How Carson City's Main Stroad Became a Street

[@aerob1033]

The funny thing is, the improved street is *still* pretty car-centric by international standards. Many city centers in Europe and Latin America have completely pedestrianized streets, often more than one. There are even a handful of thriving pedestrian malls that still exist in the US. I look at the before pics of Carson Street and I see a complete disaster, I look at the after pics and I see a solid but unspectacular walkable street that still devotes too much space to car traffic and parking. Just shows how entrenched carbrained thinking is in the US.

[@beastbike4570]

That’s what I was thinking. The new street is definitely an improvement but not by much.

[@philipr10]

Agreed. Compared to my town, this street looks designed like a fairly major road in my town.

[@tjs200]

At least its a step in the right direction, more radical change will take time.

[@puffpuffin1]

This isn't Europe. This is a huge improvement for a small town like Carson City. Shoving extremist ideas like banning cars here will likely result in nothing being done and everyone loses. It's extremist urbanists like aerob1033 and the like that we don't have more Carson Streets in the USA>

[@AlCatSplat]

@@puffpuffin1 No one said anything about banning cars. There is nothing extreme about closing a few streets to vehicle traffic.

[@Ranman242]

"a big river cutting our town in half - dangerous, sometimes fatal to cross" Well said! *Cars*on Street may not have been an urban freeway, but it seems it no less divided the town. Nice to see a positive outcome from this.

[@yeyeTF2]

"its hard to rally up people against the status quo when they don't realize the status quo is bad" damn that hit deep on many levels and yes, a great summary for a lot of great urban designs with little or hesitant backing in the US like this case study

[@roberts1677]

Downtown Carson wasn't bad before. I used to walk to the bars down there, get hammered, and walk home at no risk of a DUI. Ever since they narrowed the road, it's become gentrified to the point of not being worth it to go there. See my other comment to this video for more on that.

[@jstoli996c4s]

Most people don't know what they don't know... that's why they're called "blind spots".

[@Nutter-l3s]

Changing peoples minds on this issue is frustrating, but important! Great video

[@brandonm1708]

Got into an argument with someone on KZbin who was mad that a bunch of KZbinrs were starting to create urbanist content purely as an easy money making scheme. The only example they ever gave was you. Now I was a subscriber before I saw their comments, but especially after watching this video, I can safely conclude that what they said was ridiculous (especially since they EASILY could have gone after someone who literally plagiarizes like OBF). You clearly have put a lot of time and effort into researching the history of this street, and getting a bunch of specific peoples’ opinions from multiple time periods. Great job with this video, keep up the good work!

[@YetAnotherUrbanist]

Oh, that's funny. I wonder who said that because I haven't really seen any negative comments geared to me. Plus, you don't make much money off of KZbin. Some channels take years to turn a profit, even with memberships and patreon.

[@brandonm1708]

@@YetAnotherUrbanist yeah, the super weird part was that it was on a completely unrelated channel, and you were the only one they mentioned lol. I think their argument was that the urbanist community is tightly knit and very dedicated, and so it would be easy to quickly build an audience, which is kinda true, but it just missed all the argumentation as to why you specifically were the bad one. But hey, having a random person who hates you for no particular reason is a sign that you’re becoming famous :)

[@hendman4083]

I find all the videos on this channel are well-researched, and far from an easy money grabbing scheme. It is obvious the creator is not just copy/pasting content from other sources, but goes out of his way to do research on the topics he is covering, and shows it with an abundance of in-footage quotes from 3rd party reports and research.

[@klobiforpresident2254]

The fear of parking being taken away reminded me of something, the fact people are weird about downtown parking. I live in/near downtown in Germany. Personally I don't have a car because I don't need one and finding a spot near my flat would always be an issue. I'll just cycle to work or take the bus if it rains. Like many others I have a gym membership. Working an office job means I don't get enough work in to be physically fit (although living on the sixth floor dictates every day is leg day because the elevator's broken half the time). Once upon a time KZbin decided to recommend me a video of some fitness bro reviewing the gym I visit. The video was done as a short video log in the first half and a retrospective / review in the second. The person actually complained the gym was a bit difficult to get to because they didn't have parking. He parked in a garage literally across the street. (Bottom two stories shopping, then garage, then offices. Really weird building.) Not just did he park **literally** across the street, when crossing the street he stopped on a refuge island. A refuge island that's a tram stop. That intersection has five tram lines stop there. It's also a ten to fifteen minute walk from the central train station that carries lots of regional train traffic (S-Bahns, Regios) and basically every single Stadtbahn. People are weird about downtown parking.

[@forestfan7974]

As a new resident of Carson City, you are 100% correct that this transformed section is really pedestrian friendly and attracts more activity in the businesses in that area...since Freeway 580 took away thru' traffic on 395 towards and from Reno. The new roundabout on South Carson Street (Hwy 395) a few years later caused as much controversy.

[@stevievaughan5096]

get out we’re full

[@cz098]

@@stevievaughan5096 been here my whole life and ill take them over you

[@stevievaughan5096]

@@cz098 no one asked you. and if youre gonna act like that be prepared for people to find you. now i know where you live

[@cz098]

@@stevievaughan5096 what an odd response lmao ill be waiting stevie vaughn

[@stevievaughan5096]

@@cz098 you cant even copy a name properly lmfao

[@jennyalvauaje3533]

It’s so great to see content about smaller cities and how important good urban design is everywhere (even if the residents don’t consider themselves urban). I’ve spent my energy advocating for similar changes in Whitefish & Missoula, Montana, where we have the same issue of stroads that are highways - so technically, owned by the state. As such, it makes trying to change them even more difficult since it has to be “warranted” through state-level traffic studies. Great video as usual!

[@edwardmiessner6502]

I think sometimes the strategy should be converting the stroad into a proper road through re-zoning and the judicious use of eminent domain to create parallel streets. That will eliminate most curb cuts and some intersections, facilitating the flow of traffic on the road itself.

[@jennyalvauaje3533]

Turning (some) stroads into roads can cut off access to either side of the stroad, a particular problem in Missoula being that the stroads go right through the city. So we need good bike /ped infra and as such, the stroad would be better off as road outside the urban area and better as street within it.

[@tonih4674]

Texas DOT has a program to transfer urbanized highways to the cities. Sounds like a win-win, right? Except TxDOT still must approve the plan first. San Antonio spent seven years developing a wonderfully thought-out de-stroadification project, only to have the state yank the entire plan - because it would "create congestion." It makes me heartsick.

[@empirestate8791]

Also worth noting that while the 580 bypass was initially supposed to go around the city, it now ends up cutting through it because Carson City has sprawled so much. There are entire isolated subdivisions located on the other side of the freeway that have been recently constructed. Carson City must massively upzone their existing land and stop widening roads that induces more sprawl.

[@roberts1677]

No, there were plenty of things east of the current freeway that predate it by years or decades. For example, the apartment complex on Airport Road that I moved into in 2004 is from the 70's. I don't think there's anything particularly bad about urban sprawl. Please help me understand your objection to it.

[@empirestate8791]

@@roberts1677 It's all late 20th-century sprawl, and even then, it usually consisted of a few developments located near employment centers. Much of Carson City's sprawl is recent, and the proposed freeway was in planning for a long time.

[@hey.its.BrandishJaye]

God I remember how much of a mess it was. So many signs saying "Save Carson Street" AGAINST the idea. I hope we keep this change up. Our bus system really needs to expand too. The shear lack of good public transport is choking us as we continue to rapidly grow.

[@rayfreeman6998]

It's scary how fast we are growing and the city isn't keeping up with it, the hundreds to thousands of family homes they're planning to build are making the crowded highschool and understaffed everything so much worse

[@deebte__]

i love how you're from a small city (reno/carson city which are very closely linked economically but not physically) so you can talk about everything in your city, then you have me living down in la, i don't even know much about the inland empire, san fernando valley, far south orange county, deserts, or ventura, much less able to make videos about them

[@Lumberjack_king]

9:30 it sounds incredible 17:26 I'd honestly want for my neighborhood to not just be single family homes I'd love a couple apartments next door some small businesses and so on

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

Thank you for a very interesting history of the Carson downtown stroad. When Curitiba's mayor - Jamie Lerner - decided to build a downtown pedestrian plaza he got considerable resistance from local business owners. So he got sneaky & completed the project in a weekend. Shop owner's closed shop on the Friday and arrived on Monday to a new car-free downtown area. The project was so successful business owners clamoured to become part of the it. Further roads were closed and the pedestrian plaza expanded by quite a few blocks! The city now also boasts a 24-hour district and a protected historic area. This occurred in the late 1960s already! Lerner went on to implement many very innovative urban design projects across the city that provides residents with a good quality of life despite budget constraints. He created a sustainable city long before it was a urbanist concept. The story of Curitiba has been documented in the film "A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba. Today, strategies like design charettes & tactical urbanism gives residents a chance to review conceptual drawings - even digital renderings - or temporary installations to get a feel for the change first before changes are made permenent. Often we don't know what we are "missing" until we actually experience it. Change is tough. We get comfortable with how things are and are often too lazy or feel threatened by changes to our daily routine. Most of us grew up with cars, so going car free is a strange concept for many. I look forward to the day we can free our children of the burden of car ownership, and the freedom to use their hard earned money for more worthy pursuits!

[@puffpuffin1]

It's exactly this type of, "If it works here, it must work everywhere" narrow-minded lazy thinking is the reason why nothing gets done here in the US. The author here even says that - this may not work in every area because there are many factors that contribute to it working here, but not there.

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

@@puffpuffin1 The pedestrian plaza in Time Square (in New York City) had the exact same effect and, actually, elsewhere all over the world too.... so who is being narrow-minded?

[@puffpuffin1]

@@CitiesForTheFuture2030 Did you not listen to the video? He acknowledged this doesn't viable everywhere. Times Square isn't a car-free zone like you are advocating. It only turned Broadway into a pedestrian zone. Car traffic still goes through the area on the grid streets. Broadway wasn't much a useful street to drivers beforehand anyway, so your argument is weak at best.

[@isaiahwilliams2642]

I'm a lifelong Carson Resident. I can't express how much I loved the narrowing. Public events actually feel more social and casual stroles and even driving are generally more pleasant. Not to mention it restored a lot of Carson's sense of identity that gets lost whenever streets are widened. I just wish the rest of Carson would catch up, as my home and workplace are both beyond the borders of the Urbanized portion. If I want to get groceries or get to work, I still need to drive the vast majority of the way as every other street, including the adjacent Stewart street, where my workplace is located, is still 4 lanes, desolate and unpleasant to walk along.

[@tinatiel3765]

WOW...I did NOT recognize that street at first! I grew up in that area, and it was such a ugly boring place to pass through especially as that highway became bigger and more prominent. To see it transformed like that, in such a great way, just BLOWS my mind

[@DjangoBit]

That really is a beautiful change made to Carson street. It's amazing to see things move forward in regards to auto dependency; More robust transportation and denser construction is better for everyone. The future looks bright.

[@smileyeagle1021]

The greatest tragedy in this story is that despite how objectively better Carson Street is and how much pretty much everyone who visits Carson Street prefer it now to how it was, there is still overwhelming opposition to doing the same to Williams Street in Carson.

[@jackh3242]

I love the shoutout to David Sirota's article! Excellent points in this video as always.

[@electricerger]

I love the shots you got. It really painted a picture of the ideal street design and juxtaposed it with a stroad.

[@DRTMaverick]

Growing up in Reno, we drove through carson a lot when it was a stroad. A lot of people lost their lives crossing that street, it was very unsafe. Glad they fixed it.

[@kb181]

Great video! Explains why/how things have improved so much! I moved here in 2016 while improvements were underway, then moved away. Moved back two years ago. Love downtown. I would like to see more through streets shut down and pedestrian and bike areas expanded.

[@dianafrances6862]

I moved to Carson City in 2013 after retiring to live near my son. I remember all the controversy and the construction process which seemed to go on for years. When everything was complete, the end result was a wonderful improvement. Many people still struggle with the roundabout at Stewart and Carson Street, though.

[@MikhailKutzow]

This really is a great improvement, and hopefully more small towns can do something like it. I don't think car dependency can be changed overnight. People need good examples like this to show them how good urbanism can improve their lives. Also, good on you for pointing out that people need to be educated and shouldn't be blamed for their ignorance on urban planning. So few Americans have had the chance to see or learn about good urban planning, so how could they know better? Especially when some concepts can be counterintuitive to someone used to living in car-centric hellscapes.

[@marcelmoulin3335]

Carson City's main road conversion to a street has clearly transformed the downtown into a walkable, inviting, and memorable place where people can interact and enjoy the amenities. Creating density, eliminating excessive car parks, and removing cars create intimate places. I am fortunate to live in the Netherlands where pedestrianised, attractive, and often historic town centres teem with joyful activity. Car centric places with much urban sprawl do nothing to create a vibrant, happy environment.

[@lesand5484]

Great video, pointing at how very difficult and possible actual change is, and that it needs people engaged on a local level to start it.

[@anneonymous4884]

I love your coverage of these improvements. I'm tired of blackpilled urbanists.

[@TheStickCollector]

yes more of these conversions

[@yeyeTF2]

yes more of these comments

[@Westlander857]

This is beautiful! What a stark improvement for the better. Well done to Carson City. Now do this with the stroads in Vegas, please.

[@meadowrosepony9609]

I really enjoyed how you broke down each step towards making this a street from a stroad. It showcases how slow progress is, but that progress is happening. Its very hopeful!

[@LuficariusRatspeed]

16:46 That wacky inflatable tube man really really reaaallllly likes that building....

[@grahamturner2640]

I wonder if Main Street in Mesa, AZ, between Country Club and Gilbert Rd would count as a street post-light rail extension. Speed limits are 25mph, and there’s only one lane in each direction. Edit: also, with gas stations, many have convenience stores, which might not need people arriving by car. People are still able to get polar pops from Circle-K without driving there.

[@DSAhmed]

True, and most gas stations make almost no money from gas. It's a means to get people to shop at the attached convenience store.

[@kailahmann1823]

My German home city once had a car dealer literally right in it's center - which was fitting by the time, because that was a long distance road since medieval times. Today? The street is fully pedestrianized and the building (which itself dates back to 1530 or so) is a coffee shop. So yes, less car traffic is bad for a gas station in that street - but that's because a gas station being downtown is just in the wrong place.

[@TheBitterSpinach]

It's cool to see improvements like this from where I used to live. I'm a native Nevadan from Sparks and that city, Reno and Carson have lots of potential. Although, it sickens me to see the McCarran, Pyramid Highway expansion where portions of housing were destroyed to make way for more lanes. I live in Chicago now and live car-free. It will take a long time of proper development to see Reno, Sparks to get to that level of pedestrian-focused urbanism.

[@freespirit_17]

I love the new set up. It feels natural❤ I love downtown Carson…

[@nschmidt9055]

Beautiful video. Clear and full of information, with an optimistic conclusion focusing on how to make changes like these in a city near you. Educating people on this topic truly is important and you're doing a great job of it. Thank you!

[@lauramarschmallow2922]

well, it's called "Car"-son city. xD

[@nickallain]

As resident of Carson City and avid car enthusiast, I actually love what Carson City did. However, stating that the solution to solving one of these problems is "collective organizing and pressuring local leaders" is militant and self-defeating. This project works because the town is only 50k people, they spent millions on a bypass, have otherwise great road infrastructure AROUND Carson Street, and weren't particularly political. Carson City isn't an urban environment, so hailing this as an urban win isn't really genuine. You couldn't apply this to a major city without major damage. But that's kind of what makes urbanists into urbanists - unrealistic idealists who are hellbent on telling everyone else what to do ;)

[@Muffyn_]

Loved the history and quotes from real people, keep it up :)

[@d.michaelmcbridedc1082]

I visit my mom in Carson City often. I like the changes and it’s much more livable. Especially nice at Christmas time with all the lights are up.

[@adam1885282]

I cycle to work down a portion of this street. Traffic still moves too fast but it's narrow enough and slow enough that I can get across to make a let turn.

[@mikko.g]

Sad that Carson's ideal street is still terrible. It has a bicycle gutter, the worst kind of bike infrastructure, and tons of wide spaced low floor buildings and parking lots. It needs a lot of work before it will become a nice place to walk or live. But, at least it lost a lane along some of it and slowed traffic a bit? Not exactly radical change though.

[@hendman4083]

There is nothing wrong with an on-street bike lane if the street is low speed. That being said, I don't see too many traffic calming features. Getting rid of the asphalt and replacing it with a brick surface, and making the car lanes visually narrower by putting trees between the car and bike lanes would be a good move I think. As for the surrounding area, give it time. The council did its part, especially the multi-use zoning will be important to reshape the area in the future. More businesses will start to move in once they see the benefits of being located near a street, and not near a stroad. Residents who desire to live in a nice, walkable area will drive the densification once developers realise they can make more money from bulding houising, then from having empty parking lots.

[@roberts1677]

@@hendman4083 The few times that I've ridden downtown Carson Street, the problem I found was that I'm now faster on a bicycle than the car traffic much of the time. Motorists aren't expecting to be undertaken by bicycles and aren't checking their mirrors before right turns, leading to an increased risk of right hook collisions. My solution to that is to go a few blocks over and take Roop and Silver Sage if I want to ride south.

[@knighttuttruptuttrup8518]

I've only been here for a couple of years so I've never known it any other way. Really great video.

[@BlueDroneBlues]

I did a little video and posted it of me driving down the main street during the Covid-19 when almost everything was shutdown. It is much better that they cleaned that up a bit. Seeing Stewart St. being used more for other that are more in a rush would stay out of center of town. I enjoy even more after all the construction reducing the lanes down to 2 lanes and it makes downtown more inviting and less of an express way.

[@sierranexi]

Surveys are hard because people just can't see the benefits until the work is done. It's not like there's ten Superbowl ads for that exciting powerful 2023 model street.

[@RealSergiob466]

Addiction on cars is like an addiction on drugs

[@edgarrodriguez8973]

Hi from Bogota, Colombia. I'm planning on studying at the States and I'm getting familiar with unitedstatian urban fabric. Great video, it gives a hope por all of those who yearn for better cities in America.

[@Jonago.]

This shows that it starts with knowing your neighbors and being a community. After that, you can band together to accomplish things you never could on your own!

[@oliviaedralin1436]

Thanks for breaking this down. I’ve lived in Carson City since ‘93.. this was very interesting information.

[@spiriten]

It took me so long to figure out that you weren't talking about Carson City, Michigan. I was really amazed that the small town now looked like this, although it seemed like it had less traffic than normal on M57, and only realized it was elsewhere when I saw the mountains at 1:12.

[@rio425ee]

Hey, next time you name specific hyper local streets can you please ping them on a map in the video? I have zero idea where that bypass goes to or from bc you just listed out 2 random street names that I don't have any context for.

[@Earth098]

16:53 Exactly. I think the lack of awareness is the biggest reason for both NIMBYism and the resistance for transit and pedestrian oriented urban transformations. Some people don't know how it feels like to live in such places, because they have only lived in auto centric places there entire lives.

[@Billaxle]

You should do a video about Roop st. Next. I'm a pedestrian and I live next to it. There's hardly any sidewalks and with traffic being routed through, it's almost as dangerous to cross as Carson st. was back in the day...

[@BirdmanDeuce26]

What endlessly frustrates me about the resistance to improving the walkability/pedestrian experience of an area by reducing the amount of car traffic flowing through it, is that people perfectly understand this and their benefits as applied to _theme parks_ and _vacation resorts,_ but don't see the applicability to similarly sized areas in their own downtown core. No one says the key to improving Disneyland is driving your minivan through it; why would you require the same of your own town? It's especially frustrating when people will happily hop on shuttle services looping around and going through a resort park/college and university campuses, but see buses and trains as wastes of money.

[@puffpuffin1]

SMH. Going to a resort or theme park is a very different experience from the day-to-day grind that most people have to do.

[@dvderek]

This was really well done and clearly took a lot of effort nice bro

[@fjcg9821]

First of all, congratulations on this video, it was really interesting and nicely produced. I have to say that I was shocked to see that this small town is the capital of the state, I didn't really understand why someone would make a video about a random place in Nevada... I went on google maps to check the place and its so sad to see that it has the potential to develop a great dense and active downtown but everything I see is too many parking lots and a few nice buildings that miraculously survived demolition... America really needs to be more ambitious about city planning and recover all those beautiful cities it had a hundred years ago... Its so frustrating to see how all these important changes get blocked for years by a few dozen people that show up to the voting meetings... Strong leadership and a vision for the future is essential or you guys will be stuck with this for another century... Keep the good videos coming!

[@Servergmr]

Wow, the fact that there were some red-light runners in this video. I'd stop for red-lights even if it means being rear-ended. I've even stopped on yellow lights while bicycling and almost certainly pissing some people off and putting myself in danger, but also saving myself from the danger of being stuck in an intersection while the light is red(which is illegal for one).

[@TimothyCHenderson]

The problem with most stroads is that they're usually centered around box stores and plazas with enclosed suburbs set apart from the road. Carson's street already had a more traditional downtown to re-convert back to. We need solutions to box store and subdivision sprawl and the types of stroads they create.

[@artirony410]

the king is back

[@ethakis]

the more cars you get get off the streets of downtowns, the more of a destination it will become and therefore better, but at the same time, pursuing a policy like this does make it harder to get to downtown, and I think that it's important for cities to try to have a plan for how they'll get people into the pedestrian areas.

[@Idontwantyourcookie]

The new Carson Street seems to be a significant improvement but I don't know if you can point to it as a success story that other stroads can replicate; It seems that it was only really possible because it was a stroad at the same time that it was also a historic downtown street. It seems to me that if you took a more typical urban stroad, with the more typical mill of giant parking lots and drive throughs (rather than what seems to be a significantly reduced rate of such things owing to it being a historical downtown), this kind of revitalization would have basically been impossible. It doesn't inspire me with optimism...

[@MichaelSalo]

Thanks for this history of change. Downtown Carson today is a pleasant place to be. I would like to see the road diet expanded. After a few blocks it turns back into a stroad.

[@geo3867]

my home suburb has been turning turning parking spaces into outdoor seating at the moment, its good news!

[@joshbaughman6076]

I would love to see an expansion of the efforts made on downtown Carson street, after the new round about opens it to the 3 lane stroad of 395 you can feel the change of atmosphere. The recently improved sidewalk is a great step forward though 🎉.

[@alainterieur4837]

It may be good but there's still room for improvement. Take the bike lanes for example. They're narrow, they have car parking on the right, and to turn left you have to merge with the traffic coming from behind you and then merge again on the left turn lane. This is a very dangerous maneuver that only a tiny fraction of cyclists would do. So this bike lane is almost completely useless. The crosswalks also lack crossing islands, and there apparently is no mid-block crosswalks. But it sure is a good improvement!

[@benjaminsmith3625]

I find it fascinating that there's not more enthusiasm from businesses and land owners who want more businesses and more density! When some where is successful things other than cars should want to be there!

[@ethancrisp3491]

I never thought I'd see local areas on pages like this. Carson City is so car dependent. We always think of heading down there to hang out and walk around and then realize there is nowhere to go. It is insane

[@mdhazeldine]

This is a great case study. In the UK a lot of towns have had bypasses put in to reclaim high streets for people. Most of our towns were built before cars, with quite narrow high streets. When cars became popular, we didn't really have the option to widen streets to 4 lanes, so bypasses were a very popular solution. They generated a fair amount of protestors, but TBH, I think they on the whole a good thing when a town is on a major route to somewhere else. A lot of traffic is simply driving through, and you don't want them in your town. Obviously having a railway is even better, but not always possible and doesn't 100% solve the problem. One suggestion I would have for future videos is to not say "I think people must like this", but actually interview some people and see what they ACTUALLY think. That would be a lot more powerful than just your opinion. Also, some before/after shots would be helpful. I found it difficult to really see what was changed. I know you might not have footage from back then, but perhaps you could find some old stock footage and take some new footage from the same spot? Or show Google Street View or satellite view on a timeline.

[@unidorsalicosahedron7416]

9:33 This one I think is actually an oft overlooked point - that often, businesses are dependent, sometimes even inherently dependent, on motor traffic. Still, that doesn't even make a 4 lane road a good option for those kinds of businesses, the better one would be to move next to the highway.

[@bumblebeen8000]

I’ve lived here for 40 years, and Nevada Day is the only time that I can tell the difference in Carson Street. The wide sidewalks to accommodate parade watchers are nice. A few blocks of two lane traffic doesn’t make a difference to me. But I’m glad that the iron fences are gone.

[@santosnaosantos]

my question is: why, at these times, does the government listen to the population and ask them? When it's about raising taxes, fees, interest (something that benefits them), they don't even ask, they just approve, we only realize when it's already been approved? It even seems that they know the answer of the population and ask precisely to block the project.

[@puffpuffin1]

Because there is a lot of nuance in these projects that good well-balanced (not advocate) transportation engineers and planners do not know about. Not asking the businesses and residents for their input on projects like this only increases distrust in government.

[@airbus7373]

These are great changes, but there is still some room for improvement. Center turn lane could be a bus lane, add pedestrian islands at crosswalks, properly protect the bike lanes, and you have a perfect street right there

[@Boolai]

Very glad things are changing. Especially today when pev are taking over personal transport. A lot of automobile drivers are not friendly to pedestrians and pev and other personal vehicles.

[@jonathanlochridge9462]

I haven't seen too many before pictures. But, the ones I saw in the video didn't look too stroady to me. It looked more like a collector in size. Although, I do think making main street have more parking/wider sidewalks and overall be more walking focused is good for making it a great environment. But, making one or even two of the nearby roads into 4-lane collectors is a sensible idea in theory. Although, you would have to look at the budget cost. You can have a 2 lane collector too where you have traffic lights but the roads that connect into wait more than people on the road at a light so there is a priority. And those are good roads to have some lighter commercial places, churches, apartments. Although, if you have 4 lanes. And then each intersection also has slip-lanes. So, that at an intersection it is basically 6 lanes before narrowing a bit that is definitely a stroad in my view. Putting 6 lanes on any path that is supposed to be a street is terrible though in my view. At that point, you just have a lower speed highway flanked by a ton of giant parking lots. Although, I do know of full on rural or medium sized town loop highways that are just 4 lanes but have pretty high but not crazy speed limits. But, those are built like roads, just one with less lanes. Usually 55ish? I personally think that having a type of road between full on highways and collectors is sensible. But, I think those arterials should focus on speed rather than have normal traffic lights and stroad features. One of the closest, I have found are some of the older state highways that run through city. There are actually a decent chunk of 2 and 4 lane highways. Some are flanked by larger than normal service roads. But those are slower. It doesn't have full exits though. Rather, periodically it has a light, but the frequencies of coming across a light is rare enough that the speed limit is like a solid 60-65 for most of it, Sometimes 70. But, I have a hunch that having more 4 lane mini-highways, but less stroads and keeping the really big highways to mostly being 6 lane + service road and full ramps would be better. Or even better having more 4 lane highways + transit and then having enough transit that you could could have things work out with pretty rare 6 lane ones. In my state, most of the full urban highways are 8 lanes, Maybe 7(1 is an HOV lane likely). Although, even those big ones eventually go down to 2-4 lanes once you exit the cities. Which in my view is a lot more than we would need if transit was better. Although, at least transit isn't terrible here. It isn't really good though. I do think outside of rural areas that 2 lane highways don't make much sense. Since once it builds up a little, the safe speed ends up going down to the higher end of a collector. And it basically ends up feeling like a meh road. Since the only thing keeping people from wanting to speed like crazy are the lights. So, it ends up meh to drive and meh to walk around. Although, sometimes I see them effectively converted into slower walkable commercial streets in a city. But, then they aren't really even a highway anymore in any sense of the word.

[@carstarsarstenstesenn]

I hope cities around the country will take note. Unfortunately a lot of similar roads in the country are state highways and a bypass isn't always an option. Still hopeful we can see change especially considering the amount of improvements that some North American cities have made recently. The last part of this video is especially great. A lot of people don't understand that we need good alternatives to driving before we should even think about making places "car free." And we won't get those alternatives unless we demand them

[@Boamonster1]

19:36 I'm sure the residents are much happier now with the changes considering the gas prices shown in your video lol!

[@e.tezani3877]

Talk about the Ormsby house and the abandoned Kmart shopping center next. It's useless blight.. In Cali the Ormsby house would have already been developed

[@gailmckay5551]

@@e.tezani3877 Ormsby house is historical and making it up to code from what I understand is so unbelievably expensive, that those who have bought it since it closed as a casino just seem to give up on it.

[@dylanbloomfield213]

i grew up in carson, and i think it’s headed in the right direction, but the suburbs are still so disconnected. where i lived, the only walkable ANYTHING was a little park that was closed half the time

[@travishess3801]

Logan, Utah has a great downtown, but it would be so much better if they would convert their stroad into a street. I don't know the best way to divert through traffic, but it this is something I hope our planners are taking into consideration as they figure out what to do about the current traffic issues.

[@OuijTube]

"Or they didn't want to have a longer commute." DING! That's it.

[@KingLarbear]

You have to start with public transit my friend. You're saying we need to change one thing but change it into what? How we this impact people. People don't spend $75K on a car to be limited by people who hate them. You need to get busses started and expand it.

[@lindamiller5026]

I love the improvements!

[@johncrwarner]

Even here in Germany we have stroads In fact in our town there is a fight over installing a grade separated cycleway which will be safer on a stroad. The fight goes on and has to be fought anew in each location.

[@makelgrax]

Now that's a good video description full of juicy sources! Speaking of which, do you know of any place to do more technical reading? I have some ideas to fix up a touch of nonsense around where I live, but I can't pin-point the specifics, and it's quite frustrating not finding help on the web!

[@YetAnotherUrbanist]

I wouldn't know. Where to start looking depends on what the 'nonsense' is. Sometimes, you can try researching for a broader topic and then narrow in on the specifics of the subject.

[@MM-fe9mz]

This is an ongoing fight in Wilton manors FL, the narrowing has been discussed for like a decade now

[@indisciipline]

I feel like even gas stations could adapt, if they focus more on the convenience store inside. I’m always happy when I look up “gas station” on maps, cause I’m able to walk up and get a quick snack. If the station expanded the services past snacks, to sell magazines or books or just general store things, I feel like even they could compromise. I have no idea how profitable these stores are, though.

[@roberts1677]

I've walked to gas stations many times, more often than not for beers and smokes. The profit margin on the fuel they sell isn't that much. The money is in the other stuff they sell.

[@mariusfacktor3597]

0:15 "Two narrow lanes". Nah dawg there's a center turn lane. That's 3. It's clearly unnecessary and there SHOULD be just two. Much better than before, but still room to narrow it more.

[@peskypigeonx]

They should put a center tree-lined buffer in that turn lane, with more crosswalks added!

[@puffpuffin1]

Nah dawg, it's two. Drivers can't do much in the center turn lane except turn or to wait for a gap in traffic. It's a traffic safety measure.

[@puffpuffin1]

@@peskypigeonx No. It's a traffic safety measure. I don't mind some intermittent islands to serve as refuges, but NOT along the entire block.

[@mariusfacktor3597]

@@puffpuffin1 A center turn lane makes the street wider which encourages faster driving. This is not a safety measure. It's the opposite.

[@puffpuffin1]

@@mariusfacktor3597 No. Think traffic safety. Not what it looks like. How does it encourage faster driving if there is only one lane? And this is in an urban area. There are lots of reasons too long to list why a median is a bad idea here. Maybe you should learn a bit about traffic safety first instead of spouting off ideological extreme urbanist ideas here. By the way, judging things on the way they look only makes you a racist. Can't image what it would be like to cross paths with you...

[@davidperry4013]

They should protect the bike lanes with curbs/kerbs. If I had it my way, I would implement protected bike lanes instead of painted gutters, declare eminent domain on excess parking, and have certain streets to be car free zones where only city buses and emergency vehicles can drive through them.

[@danwylie-sears1134]

The video for the opening seconds, of the three-lane section of Carson Street, with the voice-over saying "there are a lot more people around than usual, since it is a built environment that encourages people to get around outside of a car", shows a bunch of vehicles going by, but no pedestrians. A virtual traversal of the entire narrowed section on Google Maps street view reveals a total of one pedestrian. For comparison, the intersection nearest my apartment shows three pedestrians in the first frame. One of them is right in the middle of the street, at a place where I routinely cross without bothering to go the seventy feet it would take to get to a crosswalk. That's a pedestrian-friendly location, where drivers can tell that the street is for people using all modes of transportation, not just cars. If the merchants of Carson Street were trying to turn it into a pedestrian destination, it's not working. I don't think it can work, without higher-density housing than the single-family detached homes that line adjacent streets. There aren't enough people within walking distance to have businesses that rely on that customer base instead of catering to those who arrive by car. I like being able to walk to the hardware store, two full-size grocery stores, several specialty food stores, the school my kids used to attend, twenty-some different restaurants, and various other businesses. But I don't see how you can do that in a town with only 60,000 people in its entire 150 square miles.

[@robinsparrow1618]

i'm not a city planner, but i think there's an area in my city that would be great... if it didn't have a stroad running through it. i'm trying to develop a plan for how to improve it, and this video is a big help! thanks

[@photoman4692]

Lived in the area for over 40 years and never, ever heard Carson Street referred to as a "stroad."

[@_Ag-]

It sounds to me like this is a term used by people who study urban planning (and the lack thereof), combining into one word “street” and “road” to highlight its crossover aspects, particularly those that are damaging to pedestrians and bicyclists and to citizens who must then rely on cars when otherwise they could walk amongst each other. Very interesting to consider and new to me too.

[@bigwatermelon4487]

It still has a long way from being perfect. Things like actual separated bike paths instead of painted bike gutters, sidewalk bike racks, continuous sidewalks for the smaller side streets, more trees & planters, closely packed mixed-use buildings, basically overall better pedestrian/bike & transit infrastructure. For right now the current layout will do until the community puts more pressure on city leaders to expand on making Carson St. a complete street.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

In the redeveloped version, the bike lane is on the wrong side of the car parking, inviting something americans in the netherlands seem to call dooring.

[@linuxman7777]

Another Bypass to look into was the one in Starke florida, The Bypass is a good road, and the town of Starke benefitted alot. And for people who just wanted to get around Starke benefitted as well. Alot of the fast food and car oriented buisinesses have lost business so that is true. To get people more on board, brag both about how great the Bypass road is as well as how the town is improving. But whatever you do, do not allow the Bypass road to become a stroad.

[@biglos9d]

The new freeway bypass helped a lot

[@snatermans]

@9:30 "Cars-gone city" Sounds good to me. :D

[@muaddib7705]

You talked about how there is parking everywhere but people complain about the lack of it. They are complaining that the parking isn’t right in front of the door to the business they want to go to. People want door-to-door car friendly design so they aren’t inconvenienced by traveling anywhere in something other than their 2 ton death machine.

[@56independent]

The "improved" street still looks like the worst street in our local Catalan town. It's a two-lane arterial road which is nasty to walk down (but with good connections to nice pedestrianised streets everywhere.

[@epicsnake21]

0:38 I still wouldn't feel safe biking on the street between parked cars and traffic. They need to use the CROW design manual

[@tintin_999]

I do think roads are important, but they should be built as ring roads outside of cities, not straight down the former mainstreet. I think Carson city would be even better if the main street was just bike lanes and a tram system.

[@davidkaplan2745]

I just moved to CC, I love the downtown area.