To Improve a STROAD: How One City Is Reimagining an Orphan Highway // Aurora Avenue in Seattle

Challenge your mayor. We did and it worked. We challenged him to walk from one area of downtown to another, roughly 3 miles. He did it. He was honked at by drivers 3 times, even though he was crossing where he was suppose to, and he was almost hit once. That resulted in that driver stopping to threaten him. Sad thing is many people do this walk daily.

"Stroad on stroad violence" is my new favorite planning term

Thanks for the tour of the stroadiest part of the most stroady stroad in the city. It was stroaderific. That redesign certainly looks like a significant improvement. If they could actually get it down to one lane of car traffic in each direction (and hopefully without the off peak exception for the bus lane), then it would really breathe life back into this place.

"Nearly 20 years ago, Seattle was on the cusp of a complete revamp of Aurora Avenue that would have mirrored the improvements that Shoreline made to their portion of SR 99. Then, property owners like Faye Garneau (now passed away), the owner of the Aurora Collision Center, pushed back on the improvements." – article from The Urbanist you mentioned

More of these videos on how to fix bad urban design would be great. We all enjoy criticising these places but fixing them needs to be a bigger topic of conversation.

This is my favorite topic yet, and I think the most import thing in Urban planning at the moment. These stroads are not only the most dangerous and expensive part of existing infrastructure, but also offer linear corridors with mixed zoning that could evolve to glue our suburban cities together with an urban mesh.

"Street design should account for what people do and not the other way around" Perfectly said

I’d love to hear more about the self-storage mystery. As someone who’s lived in both LA and SEA it’s puzzling just how many storage companies seem to always take up dense/historic buildings/areas and overshadow their surroundings…

I think we really ought to talk about the streetwalkers. I know you couldn't really mention it in the video because of algorithm concerns and squeamishness about the subject but it really is a factor that is shaping the issues around Aurora. I remember back in the 70s Aurora had the reputation for being a prime working ground for the ladies. It actually started to go away in the 2000s and early 2010s because they were finding it more profitable and safer to use things like craigslist and backpage to arrange liaisons. There were still some ladies out there at night but far fewer than we see today. But then there was the crackdown on those venues for sexual services and so there was a return of old habits and Aurora bloomed again. The association of that road and that profession has always made any investment in the area difficult if not downright toxic. There is a since that "those people" don't deserve any better and any civil infrastructure investment in the area is a waste of resources. A lot of people seem to think building sidewalks along aurora would somehow be rewarding the hookers. I thought it was a marvel of editing that much have cost hours of wasted video you couldn't use to avoid get any of them in this piece. Personally I think the best solution is to legalize and regulate prostitution but I am pretty far out of step with the larger Seattle community on this.

'To improve a stroad' can be a series. Love it

"...the E-Line is an extremely democratic service for a very diverse population on a roadway that's kind of a mess, otherwise." I just stumbled onto your station a couple of weeks ago, and I've been devouring your content in my free time ever since. As both the consultant PM and consultant engineer of record for King County Metro's RapidRide E & F Lines project, I was surprised and delighted to see a creator I admire shout out a slice of my professional portfolio still performing a decade after it entered service. I was and remain incredibly proud of the work we all did to deliver the project; it was truly a team effort backing a mission we all believed in. And you're absolutely right: Aurora Ave N still has its share of challenges to tackle; thanks for amplifying the impact of our work in your own imitable voice.

I'm a boomer life-long Seattle resident - this video is impressively thorough, and I didn't catch any sloppy bloopers, well done and thank you. A completely opposite topic this reminds me of, probably not CityNerd's bailiwick so much, is about the formerly-major US-route state highways that have been upstaged in usage by the Interstate highway system, out in rural areas, especially in the middle of our country, the Rockies and the Plains. I'm a road-trip enthusiast and have had many transcontinental trip opportunities trying different routes. I've been pleasantly surprised by taking US routes on these trips rather than the interstates. Examples: US12 Helena MT to Minnesota, US20 Casper WY to Rockford IL, and just last month, US36 from Denver to Quincy IL. 36 in particular was a joy, with very light traffic on a July weekday, almost no one to pass or be passed by. The absence of semi trucks is especially pleasant. You do have to slow down for towns, but they are real towns rather than just gas stations and McDonalds, interesting to look at. I recommend this to other road travelers.

A lot of US cities famous for being walkable and urban are only walkable across an area that is less than the city limits (like this example here). Would be interesting to compare cities (or regions) by the amount of area that is actually urbanist friendly.

Some years back, I drove from Everett to Tacoma entirely on the 99, and it was just about solid stroad the entire way, briefly punctuated by a cemetery, a zoo, a park, and the like, and the Alakan Way Viaduct (since torn and and replaced with a tunnel). It's kind of incredible.

If you ever do the urban cemetery video, you should take a look at Colma, California. Located just outside of San Francisco, Colma is a town with a majority of its land used for cemeteries and complimentary uses. Today, there are 1,500,000 dead people in Colma despite there only being 1,500 alive. San Francisco issued a moratorium on cemeteries in 1901 and began relocating existing graves outside of city limits shortly after. The local politics that led up to this are really interested from a planning perspective. People were fed up with how much prime real estate was taken up by cemeteries in their neighborhoods.

as someone that lives in Chicago, my first thought at the beginning of the video was Aurora, IL -- which, funnily enough, is a textbook example of suburban hell and enormous stroads!

Your channel made me appreciate even more living in Europe

9:54 yeah when one is a pedestrian using his/her own energy and moving at a slow pace one is going to take the shortest/most efficient path no matter what the infrastructure wants you to do as long as it feels reasonably safe compared to the other option.

A student in your field at Cal told me "what these large storage rental places actually are storing is the land they sit on, until a better use comes along." A thought to explore if you do look into those things. (Still awaiting your video on why you chose and love living in Las Vegas!)

As a current resident of the Bitter Lake area - thank you for making this video. I saw a video you made about stroads a while back and immediately thought of 99. I've noticed more community action starting to take place and this is re-energizing me to get involved.