Waterloo Region Connected

Activa submitted new plans for the originally planned subdivision. Unfortunately the township planning department has convinced them to go away from a traditional grid system in the original plan. The new plan is a hybrid of grid/ winding roads to appease neighbourhoods of dreaded through traffic. They also reduced park space by .6 acres to squeeze in a couple extra lots.

There is also a hec of a lot of surface parking for the stacked townhouse/ apartment buildings.

https://www.engagewr.ca/activa-holdings-...est-elmira

Grids are awful, so good for them.

(03-12-2024, 04:37 PM)ac3r Wrote: [ -> ]Grids are awful, so good for them.

Utter madness, possibly your worst take so far I gotta say

All things considered, the plan is still essentially a grid that mostly matches up with the neighbouring grid. I do like that the longer blocks have a trail midblock for pedestrians and bikes.

(03-12-2024, 05:57 PM)bravado Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-12-2024, 04:37 PM)ac3r Wrote: [ -> ]Grids are awful, so good for them.

Utter madness, possibly your worst take so far I gotta say

Haha. You only say that because you lot in Cambridge love them. :'P

But actually...what's good about them in your opinion? They are super inefficient to me and also result in a lot of unnecessary idling/exhaust which occurs when you end up stopping at an intersection every 100-150 meters. A nice thing about the majority of our region is that the roads snake all over the place, so getting from point A to B is quick because you can use a lot of different routes. The road design in this region is surprisingly good IMO.

(03-13-2024, 02:27 PM)I’m ac3r Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-12-2024, 05:57 PM)bravado Wrote: [ -> ]Utter madness, possibly your worst take so far I gotta say

Haha. You only say that because you lot in Cambridge love them. :'P

But actually...what's good about them in your opinion? They are super inefficient to me and also result in a lot of unnecessary idling/exhaust which occurs when you end up stopping at an intersection every 100-150 meters. A nice thing about the majority of our region is that the roads snake all over the place, so getting from point A to B is quick because you can use a lot of different routes. The road design in this region is surprisingly good IMO.

I think the proof is in the pudding so to speak. All the rich, comforting, old places we travel to and want to live in are on boring old grids. The only reason they might suck in 2024 is because of cars.

But if we choose to accept that cars aren’t going away and then we design spaces to accommodate them better, those spaces are naturally harder for everyone else outside of a car to get around. It just seems like bad land use that reinforces later bad transport and bad human welfare outcomes.

tl;dr: downtown galt and preston are urban planning paradises

Huh? That's a take I've never heard before.

When I think of comforting, old places to live or travel to I think old European cities with a mess of Snakes and Ladders type streets, where getting around is extremely easy whether you're on foot, train, tram, bike or car. Grid layouts are an entirely modern North American system designed around the automobile. Well, I know they've been around for millennia, but I gather we're referring more to the modern grid system rather than what the ancient Mesoamericans or the Romans did. Detroit, New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago etc are all primarily grid systems and the bonkers gridlock and traffic in these cities shows how inefficient they are. There are only a few North American cities not designed in this manner, such as Boston (MA), Providence, Pittsburg, Waterloo Region and a few others.

While a grid system has benefits, I think they're far outweighed by negatives. They are much less permeable for travel, the frequency of intersections causes congestion, they're quite often unsafer, they've been proven to be less conducive to socialization in communities, it can be quite negative in terms of planning dynamics and which somewhat related, often results in very segregated use of land by forcing development to be concentrated upon arterial roads, rather than scattered around. Fused grid systems can be a decent middle ground, which is how we develop most things these days on this continent. If I had to choose between living in a city that had a grid system like Montréal or New York City or somewhere like London or Paris, I'm definitely going to choose the latter.

(03-13-2024, 04:44 PM)ac3r Wrote: [ -> ]…. Grid layouts are an entirely modern North American system designed around the automobile. … Detroit, New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago etc are all …

… cities whose grid patterns date back to the early 1700s, 1811, 1793, at least 1867, and 1830 respectively.

I eagerly await your citations explaining how these cities’ grids were designed around the automobile.

A lot of your other points also make no sense whatsoever, but my time is limited.

Why don't you try reading the entire thing next time? You'll see in the very next sentences I acknowledge that grids predate the automobile. As I pointed out, they go back thousands of years. But obviously we're not discussing ancient Babylonian, Roman or Indus or even more "modern" middle age European or Asian cities which utilized grid plans. We're discussing contemporary grid systems and their effects on modern planning in relation to automobiles, safety, permeability of navigating a community...you know, things we are concerned about in 2024.

There's plenty of research out there on the design of cities both past and present if you're inclined to educate yourself on why I'm correct, but you state your time is limited so I assume you don't actually want to understand, you just thought you might have a gotcha moment.

(03-14-2024, 03:41 PM)ac3r Wrote: [ -> ]Why don't you try reading the entire thing next time? You'll see in the very next sentences I acknowledge that grids predate the automobile. As I pointed out, they go back thousands of years. But obviously we're not discussing ancient Babylonian, Roman or Indus or even more "modern" middle age European or Asian cities which utilized grid plans. We're discussing contemporary grid systems and their effects on modern planning in relation to automobiles, safety, permeability of navigating a community...you know, things we are concerned about in 2024.

There's plenty of research out there on the design of cities both past and present if you're inclined to educate yourself on why I'm correct, but you state your time is limited so I assume you don't actually want to understand, you just thought you might have a gotcha moment.

Well, you might start by deciding which grid systems you think are “contemporary”. The cities you gave as examples are all old enough that their grid systems clearly have nothing to do with the automobile.

Even if grids do tend to lead to problems, I’m skeptical the problems are inherent to grids. For example, maybe grids of streets with wide road allowances make planners think they can fix traffic by adding lanes, whereas a network of twisty narrow streets obviously can’t be fixed that way (short of destroying much of the city). But if the planners just don’t add the lanes and instead use the space to build great transit and pedestrian/bicycle routes, you could have a grid city with traffic like a non-grid transit-oriented city.

Getting back to the original topic, we’re talking about a single subdivision, not an entire city. You have a high burden of proof if you want to say that having straight streets that connect through the new neighbourhood is necessarily worse than a bunch of culs-de-sac.

Give me culs-da-sacs all day they long. They build community. People who live on them are more likely to get to know their neighbor and have get togethers. I have witnessed this over and over. Go on a straight street, no one knows anyone. The cars just drive by at a high rate of speed. Kids with loud mufflers pissing off everyone because they constantly accelerate, then stop, then accelerate and you have to listen to it. Just a few examples.

Lol...seems like the problem is not the street, but the traffic.

If only streets and cars were not the same thing in the mind of the typical North American.

You missed the point. Cul-da-sacs create community interaction... It isn't just about the traffic, but of course anything involving a car is a curse in your mind...

(03-15-2024, 09:04 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: [ -> ]You missed the point.  Cul-da-sacs create community interaction...  It isn't just about the traffic, but of course anything involving a car is a curse in your mind...

I think they only create community interaction more than other places is because there is no vehicle traffic. It’s not inherent to culs de sac. 

What is inherent to them is making it more convoluted to get around on foot or bike, and creating spaces that are clearly only for the people who live there, excluding anyone else from passing through. Not the greatest use of public space.

I grew up on one in a small town and all the charm of socializing and exploring as a kid came from the fact that it was a small town and there was no traffic - not because of the type of road I lived on.

(03-15-2024, 09:04 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: [ -> ]You missed the point.  Cul-da-sacs create community interaction...  It isn't just about the traffic, but of course anything involving a car is a curse in your mind...

*blinks*...you're the one who raised two separate complaints about straight roads BOTH of which were created by cars.

Cars are not a "curse" in my mind, but it's interesting how you seem to feel they are a problem, but when confronted with that reality, you accuse me of hating cars.

As for community interactions, not really, cul-de-sacs are not inherently community oriented. They provide a place to gather that is free from noise, pollution, and danger of traffic.

There is no reason that requires a development pattern that creates car dependency. It only requires the courage to block cars using any other method than putting literal houses in the way of the cars.