Stroad

A stroad is a type of thoroughfare that is a cross between a street and a road.[1][2][3] The term was coined by American civil engineer and urban planner Charles Marohn in 2011, as a commentary about paved traffic structures in the United States.[4][3][5] The word stroad is a portmanteau of street and road.

Traffic congestion on US 11E, a five-lane 'stroad' in Morristown, Tennessee, surrounded by auto-oriented commercial development with unused sidewalks

According to Marohn, a stroad is a bad combination of two types of vehicular pathways: it is part street—which he describes as a "complex environment where life in the city happens", with pedestrians, cars, buildings close to the sidewalk for easy accessibility, with many entrances and exits to and from the street, and with spaces for temporary parking and delivery vehicles—and part road, which he describes as a "high-speed connection between two places" with wide lanes, limited entrances and exits, and which are generally straight or have gentle curves. In essence, Marohn defines a stroad as a high-speed road with many turnoffs which lacks safety features.[6] In the commentary, Marohn states that stroads do not function well as either a street or a road.[7] According to Marohn, the problem with stroads is that engineering codes tend to emphasize speed and traffic flow rather than safety, so that stroads try to be "all things to all people" but end up failing in every way as a result.[5] Another analyst agrees with Marohn, that stroads have negative consequences.[8] Traffic planners in cities such as Boston[9] and Houston[10] and St. Louis[5] are rethinking their street designs to lessen accidents and the deaths of pedestrians and cyclists.

The Las Vegas Strip, an infamously clogged stroad,[11] seen from above at night.

In April 2021, urban planning YouTuber Jason Slaughter of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes published a video titled 'The Ugly, Dangerous, and Inefficient Stroads found all over the US & Canada', saying that stroads are known to be slow and inefficient at moving traffic and contrasts them with road design in the Netherlands, garnering attention to the concept.[12][2] He and Marohn say that stroads are common in the United States and Canada, and much less common in European countries such as the Netherlands. He also criticized stroads as "dangerous, expensive, and ineffective". The city of Boston is studying how to minimize pedestrian traffic deaths by lowering speed limits and redesigning stroads via road diets; a report from its Vision Zero Coalition suggested that the problem with stroads was that they gave off a false sense that drivers could drive at dangerously fast speeds.[9]