#SlowtheCars is our campaign to make streets safe and prosperous.
Why Slow the Cars?
Strong Towns advocates for financial solvency and productive land use in American cities. Places that are built for people, using traditional development patterns, can help us achieve both of those goals. On the other hand, neighborhood streets with wide lanes, huge clearance zones and other dangerous design features cause thousands of pedestrian and car passenger deaths every year. Dangerous roads do not make productive use of our land or our lives. Furthermore, they depress investment in our cities by making our neighborhoods less pleasant places to be.
People are the indicator species of success. We know that pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are more economically productive, healthier and safer. We need to build places where people want to be.
Are you an elected official who wants help making streets safer and more productive in your community?
Are you an engineer or planner who wants to start implementing real, no-nonsense approaches to safer, more productive streets?
Top Stories
What's a Stroad?
Strong Towns coined the term "stroad" several years ago to describe the over-built, over-wide streets you find in suburbs, towns and cities throughout America. A street is a platform for wealth creation, and a road is a high-speed connector between two productive places. A stroad is a dangerous hybrid of both.
We call this "the futon of transportation" because, like a futon, which is neither a good bed nor a good couch, a stroad is neither a good street nor a good road. Let's turn our stroads into streets or roads, and put our country back on a path towards being financially productive.
Read more about stroads and watch a video that shows why they fail.
(Top photo source: Michigan Municipal League)
Akron, Ohio is tackling its stroad problem, one oversized boulevard at a time. “Right-sizing” this neighborhood main street will make it safer and more inviting and hospitable for small businesses.