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Comment by pnathan | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, what is up with that "Cul-de-sacs and the Fleur-de-lis" layout going on? It's maddening!

It's because the market (that is, home buyers) don't want to live on streets that can be used as cut-throughs to get to other places. As traffic density increases, drivers will try to find shorter or less-congested routes to get where they want to go. The street on which I live (in an area built approximately 30 years ago) is an example of this: it is a wide two-lane street that connects two major roadways. There are other, non-residential streets that connect these same roadways but those routes are clogged most of the time. Therefore, people use my street with all of its attendant problems such as speeding, extremely loud exhaust and/or sound systems, not watching for people walking or biking, etc. So, non-connecting streets became the popular thing to do, along with curving streets to force drivers to slow down.

This design, by the way, isn't just some evil plot by the Robert Moses's and Henry Fords of the world; it's an idiom endorsed by Christopher Alexander in _A Pattern Language_.

I live on the "stalk" of such a development and therefore my street is the busiest. Nonetheless, it is extremely pleasant, as only residents or service people use it. It isn't a shortcut to anywhere. The biggest shortcoming is that no consideration was made for pedestrians. Even though we live close enough that my kids could walk to school, there aren't any trails or sidewalks that offer the opportunity. By road, we're a few miles away, so my kids take the bus. It's kind of sad.

That is exactly what they solved in my community. There are cul-de-sacs but they have also built bike-able and walkable paths between the back yards so you can still cut through if you wanted on foot or bike but cars can't pass through.

They do this frequently in french suburbs (at least the ones I've visited near Tours)

I didn't remember that, so I looked it up. Maybe you are thinking of a different passage, but here's what I found: "... cul-de-sacs are very bad from a social standpoint --- they force interaction and they feel claustrophobic, because there is only one entrance" [p262]. I found other places where cul-de-sacs are acknowledged, but none where they are endorsed.

Sorry, I should have been clearer; I wasn't referring to cul de sacs, so much as street grids intentionally designed to frustrate through- traffic.

Actually -- my suburb has quite a nice compromise. "Cul-de-sacs and the Fleur-de-lis" style for most of the roads. And then stright-line pedestrian/bike paths to join them up. Kind of like this:

          +---------------------------------------+
            |    |    |    |   |    |   |     |
            +- --+    +- --+   +----+   +- ---+
             | |       | |      | |      | |
             | |       | |      | |      | |
             | |       | |      | |      | |      +-----+-+-------+-+------+-+------+-+--------------------+
       |                                                        |
       +--------------------------------------------------------+

It works pretty well. The roads are quiet -- but you can walk/ride really conveniently.

It's easier to ensure that you live on a "quiet street" when the street doesn't go anywhere.

Although I can't cite any offhand, studies indicated that there was significantly less crime in such areas, as well.

Older planned development suburbs had straight streets, and seeing the same house repeated a dozen times is pretty depressing. I always thought it was so that people weren't confronted so bleakly with the cheap repetition.

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