General Township Updates and Rumours

[tomh009]

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...

We lived on a cul-de-sac in suburban Kitchener for about 14 years. We got to know exactly one of our neighbours. There was next to no visible interaction between the residents. On the other hand, there very much is community interaction on the straight streets surrounding Victoria Park.

I don't think the presence of a cul-de-sac is sufficient (or necessary) to create a community.

[Rainrider22]

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...

We lived on a cul-de-sac in suburban Kitchener for about 14 years. We got to know exactly one of our neighbours. There was next to no visible interaction between the residents. On the other hand, there very much is community interaction on the straight streets surrounding Victoria Park.

I don't think the presence of a cul-de-sac is sufficient (or necessary) to create a community.

My experiences living on them have been opposite to yours.  They have been very positive experiences.  That's why I have the opinion I have, which shouldn't be devalued by others on here which it often is because I don't agree with someone's perspective. ( I am not singling you out Tomh009, your pretty cool)

[danbrotherston]

We lived on a cul-de-sac in suburban Kitchener for about 14 years. We got to know exactly one of our neighbours. There was next to no visible interaction between the residents. On the other hand, there very much is community interaction on the straight streets surrounding Victoria Park.

I don't think the presence of a cul-de-sac is sufficient (or necessary) to create a community.

My experiences living on them have been opposite to yours.  They have been very positive experiences.  That's why I have the opinion I have, which shouldn't be devalued by others on here which it often is because I don't agree with someone's perspective. ( I am not singling you out Tomh009, your pretty cool)

Nobody is devaluing your experience. Nobody has said that cul-de-sacs cannot have a community. You are in fact the one who has devalued OUR experience, saying that cul-de-sacs are NECESSARY for community.

And in fact, I am seeking to explain WHY (you know, what features of) cul-de-sacs lead you to have the experiences you had, and whether we can have those experiences without the disadvantages of cul-de-sacs.

I'll say it again, YOU are the one who cited two examples, and both were a result of car traffic, of why you felt straight through streets are bad. Yet when I point out that this suggests that car traffic is the problem. You dismissed that as me just hating cars.

But yes, I think you're going to find a lot of people who don't think much of your opinions, because we have fairly strong evidence for why they are wrong.

[nms]

I have lived on a cul-de-sac for many years that was connected by pedestrian paths to two neighbouring streets (one of which as a also a cul-de-sac) and in a neighbourhood connected by various community pathways that meant that the straightest line between two points did not mean following the road network. As a result, many neighbours created their own walking routes through the neighbourhood which in turn encouraged neighbours to get to know each other.

[cherrypark]

Safe to say local culture and motivated residents are the actual ingredients of there being community or not, aside the road network. Cul-de-sacs can still be reasonably well interconnected or not, though that is more on the developer to plan for it.

Regardless, they are not a particularly efficient way to build and maintain in a vacuum (i.e. - makes more sense where the topography is suited to a stub of a road) and there are so many other ways to get walkable, community oriented streets that don't involve making the road a dead end. We should probably encourage other tools and neighbourhood road designs that aren't car transport and storage centric.

[KevinL]

Yeah, it's easier to build connected arrangements like a grid, and if necessary you can later restrict movements using bollards or other street furniture. Building a cul-de-sac to begin with restricts the urban form from the start and is very hard to change later.