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Do any cities build new roads/developments in a grid pattern?

stroskey

stroskey

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I was debating this with a colleague and I said I don't know of any new developments or cities in the US where they are built in grid patterns, including larger streets. I don't mean NU developments along highways, but actual traditional neighborhood patterns?

Do you know of any? Could this even happen if we wanted it to?
 
I know several cities like the Phoenix area do a good job of maintaining an arterial grid, but once your in the mile block all bets are off.
 
Do you think this might be because the recent trend is toward infield redevelopment? This would probably mean re pavement of existing grid streets. I would assume most cities grid street design has already sprawled into culdesac style streets of nearby suburbs, leaving them no room for expansion.
 
Most if not all cities in Utah are laid out in grids based upon Brigham Young's "Zion" plan established when the Mormon pioneers began to develop the Salt Lake Valley. Originally everything was a grid regardless of topography. In some of the older parts of Salt Lake City around the Downtown area there are some scary streets that go straight up a hill at around 15% grade. Something to avoid on winter days around here.

Over the years suburban communities have adopted more curvilinear master planned street patterns but the basic grid system still exists for the arterial street system.
 
It is very common for arterials where terrain permits. In most cases those arterial streets have been there for ages, but may have been small roads serving farms until development came along.
 
Brocktoon said:
+1. All major aertials are on the grid.
Click to expand...

-1 for the Thunderbird/Cactus merge (mountains do that) and the Greenway Parkway/Bell Road area.
Also, -1 for changing street names for no reason like Olive/Dunlap
Finally, -1 for the cities that turned the numbered streets east/west instead of the required north/south (you know which cities I'm talking about)

Now that I'm done bad mouthing the actually very good grid of Phoenix and it's suburbs, I think it's fun to look at development over time. You can see the change in street patterns based on when they built. The oldest tend to have a nice grid, then it became more of a center collector with maybe a grid running of it or some kind of broken grid, then there was that curvilinear phase where a straight street could not be found. I haven't seen where the latest trend is going, but I can see larger master planned places with enclaves of developers isolated by collecter streets. Still no one bringing back the old grid system.

In my last job I argued for a 1/2 mile collector grid to supplement the 1 mile arterial grid. I always said it could curve or do whatever as long as all the dots connected to allow things like kids on bikes to ride on a lower traffic street and get to where they wanted to go. Then I couldn't get engineers to understand that a collector does not need to be five lanes and 200' wide with no sidewalks. Damn traffic engineers!
 
dvdneal said:
-1 for the Thunderbird/Cactus merge (mountains do that) and the Greenway Parkway/Bell Road area.
Also, -1 for changing street names for no reason like Olive/Dunlap
Finally, -1 for the cities that turned the numbered streets east/west instead of the required north/south (you know which cities I'm talking about)

Now that I'm done bad mouthing the actually very good grid of Phoenix and it's suburbs, I think it's fun to look at development over time. You can see the change in street patterns based on when they built. The oldest tend to have a nice grid, then it became more of a center collector with maybe a grid running of it or some kind of broken grid, then there was that curvilinear phase where a straight street could not be found. I haven't seen where the latest trend is going, but I can see larger master planned places with enclaves of developers isolated by collecter streets. Still no one bringing back the old grid system.

In my last job I argued for a 1/2 mile collector grid to supplement the 1 mile arterial grid. I always said it could curve or do whatever as long as all the dots connected to allow things like kids on bikes to ride on a lower traffic street and get to where they wanted to go. Then I couldn't get engineers to understand that a collector does not need to be five lanes and 200' wide with no sidewalks. Damn traffic engineers!
Click to expand...

I spent part of my childhood in Phoenix in this neighborhood: http://goo.gl/maps/9SS4s. The streets are curvilinear and there are a lot of cul-de-sacs but it still feels like a grid in many ways. Having a rather "free range" childhood, we were allowed to go on foot or bicycle anywhere within the confines of Black Canyon Highway, 35th Ave, Thunderbird Road, and Greenway Road. I attended Acacia Elementary School and at the time there was no bus service, you walked or rode your bike :)
 
My friends step dad still lives in that neighborhood on 29th. I grew up a few miles west over by Greenway and 51st Ave. Same kind of childhood, freerange within about a mile block and sometimes I was allowed to cross the big street (I did it anyway).

I should do some kind of impromptu study to figure out when developers used different street patterns and why. I wonder if the desire to make cul-de-sac lots generated the curved grid pattern? Maybe next week if I'm bored I'll put some pictures of different neighborhoods and see if we can spot the era it was built.
 
dvdneal said:
-1 for the Thunderbird/Cactus merge (mountains do that) and the Greenway Parkway/Bell Road area.
Also, -1 for changing street names for no reason like Olive/Dunlap
Finally, -1 for the cities that turned the numbered streets east/west instead of the required north/south (you know which cities I'm talking about)

!
Click to expand...

Dunlap becomes Olive when you enter Glendale. Changing names as you go from one city to the next is common in the East Valley Cooper to Stapley, McQueen to Mesa Dr, Williams Field to Chandler Blvd etc.

You forgot Grand Ave and Chandler Rd and Ray converging.
 
It's still common in the Denver area. Major arterial roads run along section lines, and winding but mostly interconnected collectors roughly follow half-section lines.
 
We do a fair amount of retrofitting old industrial areas with a street grid. Seen it in Camberville too.
 
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