Laguna's Roads and Stroads

High-speed Stroad through business district, Broadway LB

Once-upon-a-time Laguna Beach had horses cows and Model-T Fords, today they have Caltrans and cars. Laguna Beach used to be a Place, today it's a Destination. It used to be a place where locals enjoyed community events, arts, performing arts and a sense of community and prosperity. Today it's a destination drawing visitors to those same attractions but from everywhere far outside the Laguna geography.

To manage visitor and resident mobility, Laguna Beach adopted a car-centric urban plan to receive visitors, and to facilitate resident's vehicle trips to destinations outside Laguna Beach demanded by jobs and schools. Trips made by pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders were neither counted nor valued in the mobility calculus.

Roads are for moving vehicles quickly, streets are for quiet family neighborhoods and businesses where community wealth is generated. Roads invite higher speeds reducing delay times but destroy the value of local space due to higher speeds. Streets beg slower speeds preserving a sense of place without destroying the value of place.

Roads are for moving vehicles quickly and should be kept free of businesses because every curb-cut stop-light and cross street increases delay-time and threatens safety. Streets are for moving slower modes of traffic that patronize businesses and serve residences, they should be kept free of car through-traffic. When roads are slowed by cross traffic and businesses they become Stroads, when streets are invaded by car through-traffic they also become Stroads.

Stroads no longer serve the purpose they were intended. A Stroad is like a cold futon; an uncomfortable bed for sleeping and a backless couch for sitting, they do neither well. They no longer comfortably serve the purpose of a bed or couch.

In "How to Fix the Most Dangerous Streets in America"  author Jeff Speck, Citylab|Transportation BLOOMBERG cites examples where cities have examined their mobility plans to repurpose Stroads. Hammond Indiana, Lancaster California, Landshut Germany, all have redesigned their Stroads to become roads and streets once more.

-LS