[CalRobert]

Once upon a time crossing the street meant walking across a 20 foot road with the occasional small car going 20-25 mph. Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad full of 6,000 pound trucks that can't see anyone shorter than 5 feet past the hood going 50 mph.

How far will you let your kid walk from home alone?

Anyway my point is just that pedestrian deaths have gone up even as the number of miles walked and biked (_especially_ by kids - the modeshare for biking to school has absolutely plummetted) goes down.

[jjulius]

>How far will you let your kid walk from home alone?

Pretty damn far, actually, as the parent of two.

[rightbyte]

From what age? I think people are talking past each other here.

There is a point in time between infant and adulthood were you have to start letting them play unsupervised.

[Aurornis]

> Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad

People weren’t letting their kids play near 8 lane freeways back in the day, either.

[skyyler]

You missed the point, which is that many roads that used to be easily crossable roads are now 4-8 lane stroads.

Yes, people didn't let their kids play near freeways in the past. But now a much larger number of streets are freeway-style roads.

[kubectl_h]

Is this a California or Texas thing or something?

The hyperbole in this thread is wild to see.

[const_cast]

Texas checking in here - yes, it's Texas, and no, it's not hyperbole.

Don't know what rinky dink town you're from, but here most roads are 6-8 lanes across. Yes, that includes in our small cities. They're essentially highways but with signal lights. Go to Arlington, Grand Prairie, Richardson, Fort Worth, Roanoke, Southlake, you name it, and it's just roads after roads like this. Trying to cross them is extremely dangerous.

Stroads is a correct description.

[kubectl_h]

I'm from rural Texas and it is indeed rinky dink town, not to far from the places you mention. But I moved to New England years ago and don't miss Texas at all. Keller, Southlake, even, sadly, Denton were overdeveloped hell holes then, but I never lived anywhere where kids were playing right beside an eight lane road. At worse maybe they had to cross a 4 lane road with a median if they were going somewhere outside their neighborhood, and you had lights and crosswalks for this, but mostly people lived in neighborhoods where there were... normal... roads.

[const_cast]

They're over-developed and simultaneously run down. If you've ever driven down southlake boulevard you know it gets PACKED during rush hour.

> I never lived anywhere where kids were playing right beside an eight lane road

You leave my neighborhood and immediately it's a 50 MPH 6 lane stroad. Granted, I'm counting 3 one way, 3 the other, occasional turning lanes makes it 7 or 8.

It's true your neighborhood is fine. But there's literally nothing in your neighborhood but homes. If you need anything, no matter how trivial, you have to cross stroads. This is very much in contrast to urban mixed-use pedestrian friendly areas.

[vel0city]

Another Texas resident, confirming yes this is largely the experience for a lot of Texas. But its not just Texas; I've seen the same in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and other places. Practically every neighborhood development since the 1980s is probably like this.

You'll have smaller streets inside of neighborhoods which are islands of nothing but houses, then massive busy streets in between. Sidewalks directly abutting these very busy streets, if even there. Usually no bike lanes.

[CalRobert]

Maybe? I grew up in California. The streets where my dad lives are ludicrously wide