boulevards

By the 19th century (before cars) you ended up with a grid of broad roads and open boulevards.

Then you have cities like Edinburgh or Paris that are built around the notion of wide boulevards.

That was partly for artistic reasons, but the wide boulevards had the nice benefit of being riot-safe.

It's been extremely succesful, and there is also a complimentary system of bicycles boulevards for people to ride bikes.

Neighborhood greenways and bike boulevards are becoming more and more common in the US and within professional bike advocacy circles.

There is the Champs-Elysee with car dealships and over-priced cafes, and then the other boulevards with embassies and high-end apartments.

And solving traffic congestion was one of the reasons for putting in those wide boulevards.

LA has wide boulevards with cars sometimes moving at high speed right next to peds...

Thankfully with cycling infrastructure, many cities, including Palo Alto, are finally getting serious about making more bicycle boulevards and bike lanes.

Having grown up in the suburbs, I only now realize how isolating boulevards and strip malls can be.

If the government was serious about making cycling safer it would provide better cycling facilities such as protected bike lanes and bike boulevards.

Yet, you still find streets, avenues, boulevards, schools wearing the name of such butchers all over France.

Then 'History of the bicycle' says: "On the new macadam paved boulevards of Paris it was easy riding...

Awesome article, delivering harsh stinging truth: "As disappointed visitors and new employees discover, Silicon Valley is a dull and ugly landscape of low-rise stucco office parks and immense traffic-clogged boulevards.

They're used only on certain, designated, low-volume/low-speed corridors designated as "bike boulevards." This works surprisingly well, because it ends up that a sharrow in Portland doesn't mean "get along"--it means "bikes have priority." For the most part, drivers along the bike boulevards seem willing to drive slowly behind a bicyclist puffing up a hill and wait until they have plenty of space to pass.

It's also a clear example of why the author's theory that street width is all important is wrong: central Paris is still very walkable with an incredibly strong sense of "place" because of the broad boulevards rather than despite them, whereas plenty of the "walkable" streets he highlights are either cul de sacs in suburban areas or pedestrianised zones in town centres usually accessed by car.

I make pretty heavy use of our Bicycle Boulevards.