stroad

English

Etymology

Blend of street +‎ road, so named because the widths and speeds of such roads make them dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, while their excessive number of intersections and driveways prevent them from being able to move vehicles safely and efficiently. Coined by American urban planner Charles Marohn in 2011.[1]

Noun

stroad (plural stroads)

  1. (transportation planning, US, derogatory) A wide, fast road with a large number of intersections and driveways attached.
    • 2014 January 7, Sarah Goodyear, “Defining the Worst Type of Street Design”, in CityLab, Bloomberg:
      While Marohn came up with the neologism partly in a spirit of fun, he considers stroads a deadly serious problem. Not only are they dangerous and aesthetically repugnant, he argues that they are economically destructive as well.
    • 2017 June 30, David Sachs, “DPW Moves Forward With Making Quebec Street a Wide, Dangerous Stroad Instead of Prioritizing People Over Cars”, in Streetsblog Denver:
      The federal government pitched in $11.5 million for this stroad, so it requires this step before construction begins.
    • 2019 January 27, Frank Krygowski, “AG: Lit Crit wanted”, in rec.bicycles.misc‎ (Usenet), message-ID <q2lvot$tda$1@dont-email.me>:
      Roads I ride on: […] Very frequently, a four lane suburban stroad with 30,000 to 40,000 cars per day. 12 foot lanes. That's a tough one, because it's sort of sharable with a tiny car (Fiat 500, VW Beetle) if the driver is careful. But anyone else will be passing too close.
    • 2024, Jonathan Maskit, Bicycle‎, Bloomsbury, →ISBN:
      A stroad has the driveways, intersections, and crosswalks (sometimes!) of a street, but the higher speed-limit of a road, perhaps 45 mph (70 kph) or more. Oh, and one more thing. The stroad has the multiple lanes of travel one might associate with an avenue (in Manhattan, say) or a limited access highway.

Derived terms

Translations

References
  1. Sarah Goodyear (2014 January 7) “Defining the Worst Type of Street Design”, in Bloomberg‎:
    Marohn says he coined the term in 2011 to wake up the people who design America's roads. "I really was writing it as a way to push back at the engineering profession and get my fellow engineers to think about the bizarre things they're building," says Marohn. That was why he initially wrote the word in that annoying all-cap style, which he eventually dropped.

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