Cul-de-sacs: not so nice
Every month over on our free online network for our friends who work in local government, we pick a topic to dig into together. For each topic, we share (among lots of other things) some talking points that may be helpful for getting your peers in local government on board with policies that make our places safer, more equitable and human, and more financially resilient.
Here is a little teaser of the kind of thing you can find on the Community Cultivators Network. We briefly tackle one of the most controversial pieces of subdivision regulations: the cul-de-sac.
Let’s talk about the cul-de-sac for a moment. Long heralded as a way to keep neighborhoods safe, to enhance property values, and to prevent speeding, there are many who seek out homes located on a cul-de-sac in their community. Realtors highlight them, and the resulting odd-shaped lots offer massive rear yards.
But there's more to consider about the cul-de-sac. When you hear the following common arguments, consider these corresponding responses.
1. They "enhance public safety."
Not really. It’s true that fire codes require cities to pave cul-de-sacs with an extraordinary diameter (which, incidentally, results in an extensive—and expensive—amount of paving to maintain). This has the knock-on effect of requiring motorists to travel to the nearest through street to go anywhere, funneling traffic from sometimes hundreds of lots to a single exit point. These conflict points are particularly conducive to crashes.
It also takes substantially longer for police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances to get to your house when you have an emergency.
Cul-de-sac communities turn out to have some of the highest rates of traffic accidents involving young children.
2. They have "little to no effect on costs for the city."
Not so much. The sheer amount of paving necessary for each cul-de-sac is a monetary drain. For example, an 8,500-square-foot volume of cul-de-sac paving for four lots equates to 2,150 square feet per home, which is 40 percent more paving per house than a home along a typical straight street. This means the home will cost the city 40 percent more for snow removal, resurfacing, and so on—forever. In addition, cul-de-sac style development leaves the city with less land with taxable value than a traditional grid would.
3. They are "better for my family"
Think so? Consider these points.
Rather than uniting neighborhoods within and to their communities, cul-de-sacs isolates them.
From a piece in Streetsblog: “They turn what should be a 100-yard walk into a two-mile drive, and they put more people in cars for more reasons than they should,” Lucy said. And because they get lulled into a sense of security, he said, parents don’t teach their kids about street safety and the “difference between street and sidewalk and driveway and yard.”
More from that same article: “In urban areas, where cars are going slower, there are more crashes—but lots of them are fender-benders that don’t result in injury. Indeed, Lucy said, you’ll find less danger where there are more crashes. But where cars are traveling at high speeds, crashes are far more serious – both for people in cars and people biking or walking along the road.” (source)
Or, if you're the kind who prefers videos to reading, check out this quick video from Adam Ruins Everything, highlighting (in admittedly a much more fun way) some of the issues with the the cul-de-sac:
Of course, there’s so much more to cover on this topic and we’ve barely grazed the surface. Want to see the continuation of this discussion? Hop on over to the Community Cultivators Network—which is, for the time being, limited only to those working in local government or for a local agency!—to join the conversation!
