Why grids are better for walking, in 1 simple graphic

[Double L]

Originally Posted by summersm343

http://pandawhale.com/post/13279/bos...cause-fuck-you

I love this!

[memph]

Originally Posted by strongbad635

When it comes to urban design, a grid that is TOO regular can be as much of a problem as one that isn't regular enough. Manhattan's ultra-strict grid eliminates one of the great devices of urban design: the terminal vista. With a few exceptions like Times Square and Union Square, Manhattan's grid presents vistas that go all the way to the horizon without interruption. This means when a pedestrian or driver travels through the grid, their view never changes. they make a right turn, and the view is the same: buildings and street all the way to the horizon.

Psychologically, humans like to break trips up into smaller segments. And the longer the trip, the more segments we want to break it up into. Having periodic landmarks that terminate the vista allows humans to create visual anchors so we can break our trips up into these pieces and feel like we're getting somewhere as we travel.

The best kind of street system is one with a regular grid that is punctuated by diagonal streets that create terminal vistas at certain intervals. These spots should be reserved for important buildings (often the civic buildings) so they further stand out from the background of the rest of the city's buildings. Not only does this create more dignified and postcard-worthy viewpoints for a city, it helps navigating the city's streets become a more pleasant and gratifying experience.

The diagonal streets can potentially be the place where two different street grids meet, like Greenwich Ave (NYC), Market Street (SF) or Fulton/Atlantic, Broadway, Union and Flatbush in Brooklyn. You could have vistas where the two grids meet on the diagonal street.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

You got to wonder opinion the author has never been to the Latin quarter of oaris or the pointe neighborhood in Rome. Ain't no grids there and it is teeming with pedestrians.

Maybe it has more to do with culture and economics than physical space.

[llamaorama]

Yes but it's still connective and porous probably, compared to the dead ends of that other area.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

You got to wonder opinion the author has never been to the Latin quarter of oaris or the pointe neighborhood in Rome. Ain't no grids there and it is teeming with pedestrians.

the poor reading comprehension skills of SSP continue.........

Originally Posted by Steely dan

yes. in fact, it was actually explicitly stated right in the very first freaking post of this thread:

but then people with poor reading comprehension skills got thrown off because they didn't bother reading beyond the thread title and the word "grid" got them all hot and bothered.

the thrust of this thread is not about rectilinear orthogonal street girds vs. twisted, chaotic medieval street plans, it's about street interconnectivity vs. disconnectivity, as witnessed when comparing a a classic american city street grid vs. a contemporary sprawlburbia cul-de-sac subdivision

[Doady]

It's not SSP's fault that the article writers use misleading terms. If it's not about grids, then don't say it is about grids. Simple as that. "Reading comprehension" also means being aboe to use the correct words.

[skunkachunks]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Grids are easy when a city is not made up of islands anda peninsula with erratically-shaped coastlines and is pancake flat.

I'm prefacing this with - yes I read the article and understand that this is not grid vs. winding roads. Winding + interconnectivity = pedestrian friendly and a grid the size of the US Interstate system (which is admittedly a grid) = not pedestrian friendly.

However, your post seems to imply that Manhattan was not a land of erratic coastlines and hills when in fact "hills and coastline" is an accurate description of pre-grid Manhattan. Am I misinterpreting?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Doady

"Reading comprehension" also means being aboe to use the correct words.

"reading comprehension" also means reading more than just the headline.

the author of the article clarified what he was talking about to anyone who bothered to read beyond the headline.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

"reading comprehension" also means reading more than just the headline.

the author of the article clarified what he was talking about to anyone who bothered to read beyond the headline.

If he wrote a proper headline that wasn't misleading, he wouldn't have to clarify anything.

The headline:

"Why grids are better for walking, in 1 simple graphic"

And then, the graphic:

"One-Mile Walk in a Compact Neighbourhood" vs. "One-Mile Walk in a Sprawling Suburb"

It makes no sense.

"Grids are better for walking" but "the key isn’t a strict rectilinear grid". No amount of "reading comprehension" will make this sensible.

The article is very poorly written, I don't understand why people continue to defend it.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Doady

No amount of "reading comprehension" will make this sensible.

well, it made sense to me.

perhaps you need to bone up on your reading comprehension skills?

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, it made sense to me.

perhaps you need to bone up on your reading comprehension skills?

I don't think he understands what you're writing here...

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, it made sense to me.

perhaps you need to bone up on your reading comprehension skills?

If you think that saying grids matters and then saying they don't matter makes sense, then you are the one who needs better reading comprehension skills.

Learn to read. You need to understand English better.

[Jasonhouse]

^The lengthy word "interconnectivity" was simply supplanted for "grid" in the headline.

[memph]

Actually if you're going to make a simple measurement, block density is much better than intersection density. When you count all the intersections culs-de-sacs create that sprawly neighbourhood has comparable intersection densities to central Toronto neighbourhoods and only a bit lower than Manhattan.

The differences are actually pretty small between the sprawly neighbourhood and most North American grid neighbourhoods (maybe 1.2-1.8x higher) when compared to the intersection density of Tokyo (5-10x higher).

While Manhattan has an intersection density only about 1.5x higher than the sprawlburb, the block density is about 5x higher (and probably about 20-50x higher in Tokyo...).

You might be able to come up with more complicated algorithms, like for a specific address:
-how much street length there is within a 10 min walking distance
-in addition, take all points within a 10 min walk of that address and find how much many paths there are (on average) that can reach those points within x amount of additional time and with at most x amount of overlap between the various paths.

[simms3_redux]

"Block size" is basically what we're getting at in a nutshell. Streets that don't connect with each other in any sort of meaningful or "immediate" pattern, whether rectilinear or not, and then also not connected within a larger "system" of similarly sized and connected blocks is a recipe for disaster for planning purposes, congestion, land use efficiency, walkability, and appropriate mix of uses (and general zoning and transit optionality among a whole host of other things).

Neither Boston nor Atlanta is on a very large rectilinear "grid". Both cities have winding roads and "country roads" of some sort, whether it's the old Boston adage that the road system follows old cow trails or Indian trails or the Atlanta road system, which is God knows what (country roads connecting old rail stops that are now filled in with sprawl I would suppose).

However, a "block" in most of Boston is very small. A "block" both in the city of Atlanta and certainly in metro Atlanta is VERY large, often square miles. Larger winding roads with strip centers that serve as the connectors to isolated and disconnected subdivisions. Metro Boston is not too dissimilar to metro Atlanta in that it's about older, smaller towns that either formed around railroads (Atlanta) or factories/water (Boston) filled in with low density country style sprawl. But you'll find this development pattern IN the city of Atlanta as opposed to IN the city of Boston, which has streets reminiscent of an older European city.

I guess it's just not that hard to understand what the article was getting at.

**Also in NYC it's not the lack of terminal vistas that make you feel like you aren't making any progress, it's Manhattan traffic!!

[Jasonhouse]

Density of closed loops.


Edit: oh and something kinda related, which I presume will fascinate anyone who hasn't already seen it before.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/20...-them-sideways

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Jasonhouse

^The lengthy word "interconnectivity" was simply supplanted for "grid" in the headline.

I can understand that. But I can also understand why some people were misled by headline, which does change the meaning a lot. I don't think people deserve to be insulted by Steely Dan because of the misleading and contradictory words. But I will cut the writer some slack because there is only so much you can say in a headline. But it would have been better to say "Why higher density is better for walking" because that's what the article and that graphic is really about: street density, intersection density, population density, job density, retail density, etc. Density is the key to shorter walking distances.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the poor reading comprehension skills of SSP continue.........

I don't know about that. The author states that grids are superior than non-grids and then uses an n of 1 to back it up. And then he or she goes on to dismiss his or her theory in the last paragraph saying it isn't about grids but it is about inter-connectedness. So are grids superior or not?

Based on my experience , I'll put money on non-gridded paris or rome over any grid you got, one on one, mano a mano. I don't care about ease of knowing where one point is in relation to the next, I got a bloody app for that. It is not like I'm walking around doing the Pythagorean theorem.