Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Driving distance between two adjacent homes

I came across this tweet by Sean Galbraith last night. You will probably need to click through to see the full extent of the photos. It is a series of images showing two back-to-back houses. The lands touch one another. But if you were to drive from one house to the other, it would take you about 18 minutes because of the area’s road network. Approximately 7.1 miles.

This, of course, is far from urban. It would take over two hours to walk this same distance (assuming an average walking speed of 1 mile every 18 minutes). If you’re an urbanist, this is surely galling to you. But I think it’s also important to remember that this is, at least partially, a result of a consumer preference for dead end streets that limit through traffic.

2 responses to “Driving distance between two adjacent homes”

  1. Douglas Pollard Avatar
    Douglas Pollard

    There is a pattern called the fused grid http://www.fusedgrid.ca/ which addresses this issue.It has been implemented in several instances.It creates the most efficient driving grid while facilitating the benefits of dead ends and cul de sacs and simultaneously creating the shortest, most pleasant walking distances to life’s amenities and necessities. It even increases the amount of green space and reduces the amount of impermeable surfaces as well

  2. Fanis Grammenos Avatar

    Thank you, Douglas, for mentioning the Fused Grid pattern. Wiki has an extensive article with the same heading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_grid. There is a full set of images of drawings, short videos and 3D depictions of neighborhoods and communities in this flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22392855@N08/albums/72157612393017935
    and pictures of a built community in this album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22392855@N08/albums/72157682141057223
    All are available for downloading by simply mentioning the source when used.

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