Quote:
Originally Posted by hulkrogan
My gripe with new neighbourhoods is the walkability. Every kid should be able to walk to a 7-11 for a slurpee. They started screwing this up when they went away from the grid to all these crazy mazes of crescents and cul-de-sacs that have only one or two ways in or out of the community.
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From a traffic planning standpoint limiting entry and exit points makes a lot of sense. Since you know the density of a neighbourhood you know the traffic volume coming out of it therefore you know the intersection type you need to design to accomodate that volume.
The alternative of grids leads to people bypassing the main arteries through communities and much more difficult to control traffic. Take a look at the older communities like Mount Royal or Kingsland. They are adding traffic circles and blocking off streets to prevent cutters.
Also from a walkabilty point of view they aren't so bad once you learn where the short cuts are. Really the key to walkability is being close to where you work. For the many that live and work in the south they really have no more impact then people who live and work downtown.
To me the key to new communities is to bulid in office space commercial and tax it less if required. The office space near Cattlebaron in the deep south is a good example of decreasing the number of downtown commutes.