Checked Boxes and Propaganda: The Next Barrier to Strong Towns
(Source: Rick Obst on Flickr.)
As we see Strong Towns ideas enter the mainstream, I’m reminded of something Daniel Herriges wrote in 2019: “If we win, really win, you won't hear about it — because the vast majority of the change we produce won't be attributed to us at all,” he says. “It will be embedded in the broader culture.”
In 2019, the portmanteau “stroad” absolutely permeated the planning profession. Five years later, in 2024, its usage extends far beyond planners and self-proclaimed urbanists. In 2019, parking reform was slowly catching on in select cities but was hardly making waves nationally. In 2024, the movement has snowballed, with a new city abolishing mandates every month.
In just the last few months, Strong Towns ideas have penetrated the mainstream in ways few of us expected. The Wall Street Journal reported on stroads earlier this May. The Washington Post asked its readers to “rethink parking lots” back in March, following an article by The New York Times which referred to cities as “awash in asphalt.” Highway expansions are routinely bad-mouthed in major publications nowadays and incremental housing is having a renaissance.
Hyperlocal outlets have been eagerly republishing our content under the Creative Commons license and otherwise repackaging our ideas for their audience. Local Conversations like Reconnect Rochester and Strong Towns Steubenville have been garnering media attention again and again for their advocacy.
Ten years ago, Strong Towns advocates were virtually alone in championing incremental development by right, #NoNewRoads and the elimination of parking mandates. Now, more than ever, it appears that these campaigns are sung by a choir. At a glance, it seems like we’re winning.
Yet, I’m reminded of these cautionary words from Herriges’ article:
“If the name 'Strong Towns' is on ten times as many tongues as today, but the same sort of bad investments are still being made with the same frequency as today, that will be a failure. If people who say they agree with us are finding themselves unable to apply our analysis in their actual work — because the institutional barriers are too high or because they don't see the opportunities — that's a failure.”
So even as elected officials and the media appear increasingly interested in placemaking, critical of highway expansions and anxious about housing, the nuance that Strong Towns advocates so diligently champion is needed more than ever. The shortcomings of Complete Streets, a program which, in theory, champions the same goals as Strong Towns, perhaps best exemplifies the stakes.
When Complete Is Incomplete
“The intentions behind the concept of Complete Streets are clear and straightforward. A street should be a safe place for everyone who uses it,” founder Chuck Marohn wrote in 2023. “...But I don’t support Complete Streets.”
Ager Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, best showcases the reasons for Marohn’s reservations. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) named Ager Road one of their 2023 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement award recipients, referring to it as a “Green-Complete Streets Project” and claiming the project “improved the safety, functionality, and aesthetics” of the street.
The Ager Road project also won an award from the County Engineers Association of Maryland (CAEM) as their 2022 Large Project of the Year. The Washington DC Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (WDCSITE) named Ager Road their Project of the Year. The organization called the project a “powerful example” that created a more “connected, inclusive community.” According to WDCSITE, Ager Road makes good on the Complete Streets objectives to “improve safety, accessibility, functionality, and aesthetics.”
In their award presentation, Marohn points out, WDCSITE states that Ager Road is “truly is the County’s hallmark green-complete streets project that addresses the needs and enhances the daily lives of its underserved residents through multi-modality.”
The irony here is that Ager Road is a stroad. It was a stroad before it underwent its Complete Streets transformation and it remains one today. By some measurements, it’s worse today than it was before the investment.
Before (2012):
After (2022):
Firstly, the number of car lanes remains the same, but each one has been expanded from 10 feet to 11 feet, a national standard and a hallmark of what Strong Towns calls “forgiving design.” Additionally, trees along the road’s perimeter have been removed in the interest of increased driver visibility, and street parking has been supplanted by an unprotected bike lane. Together, these updates conspire to “optically open up Ager Road,” effectively encouraging higher driver speeds. Indeed, 70% of drivers on Ager Road continue to exceed the speed limit, according to a study done in 2023 as part of the Crash Analysis Studio.
“On this ‘hallmark Green-Complete Streets project,’ the designers ensured that they checked all the boxes required for a Complete Street,” Marohn said. “But they put in none of the effort needed to understand the real struggles of someone outside of an automobile.”
This box-checking cost Hellen Jorgensen her life. On August 13, 2021, 61-year-old Jorgenson was struck crossing Ager Road. Maybe she was trying to access the newly renovated West Hyattsville Metro Station. Perhaps she had just left the transit hub and was heading home. In any case, “Hellen Jorgensen needed a Complete Street,” Marohn concluded. “Instead, she got a deadly stroad wrapped in half-measures and industry propaganda.”
Memorial for Hellen Jorgensen on Ager Road.
If Strong Towns’ calls for safer streets result in box-checking — that’s a failure. If Strong Towns ideas are co-opted to produce an award-winning Complete Street like Ager Road — that’s a failure. If top-down street transformations continue to crowd out bottom-up small bets — that’s a failure.
As the ideas that Strong Towns has championed for years proliferate the mainstream, we need to be more principled than ever. This is what we’re up against.
Strong Towns advocates are holding the line, fighting for true positive change instead of checked boxes and propaganda. Join their ranks. Become a member today.
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Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.