Fused Grid Plan Could Help Suburb Development (Paul Justus Commentary)

Travelers in Northwest Arkansas will notice that some neighborhood street patterns are very different than in other areas. Some areas follow a regular city block pattern, and other areas contain dead-end or cul-de-sac streets along with looped (sometimes called crescent) street patterns.

Both of these patterns have advantages and disadvantages. Researchers with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) offer a new concept known as the “fused grid” as a way to combine the best of both street patterns.

Northwest Arkansas residents can see the traditional grid pattern in the many neighborhoods surrounding the downtowns of Rogers, Springdale, Fayetteville and Bentonville.

The grid pattern consists of city blocks framed by a regular cross pattern of streets with four-way intersections.

The grid pattern goes back many centuries. In fact, Aristotle both praised and criticized the grid pattern for newly founded Greek cities. Aristotle liked the grid because it was considered pleasant and city strangers could easily find their way.

However, Aristotle pointed out that when it comes to security, the more confusing organic street patterns (probably built over goat paths) gave city natives a military advantage over invading foreigners.

The traditional grid worked fine in cities for many centuries. However, after World War II, with the rise of inexpensive mortgage loans for returning GIs, the interstate highway system, and the ability of the average family to own a car, America experienced an explosion of suburban development.

Architects, engineers and planners at the time saw this as an opportunity to create a new development pattern that provided residents with cul-de-sac and looped streets that eliminated through traffic.

With the creation of a transportation hierarchy of roads (local, collector, arterial, etc.), cars could travel at faster speeds and carry commuters to more distant suburbs. Developers discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, the suburban pattern took up less road space and, thus, left more land for development. Young families with small children flocked to the perceived greater safety, tranquility and automobile access offered in suburbia.

Beginning in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, some architects and city designers, known as the new urbanists, began advocating a return to the traditional grid pattern.

The new urbanists maintained that the grid pattern provides better pedestrian and bicycle connectivity — especially to transit stations — and, thus, should not be abandoned.

Fanis Grammenos, a senior researcher with CMHC, Canada’s government housing agency, developed the concept of the “fused grid.”

Grammenos holds that the fused grid works as a synthesis of the suburban cul-de-sac and looped street patterns with that of the traditional grid.

The fused grid consists of a large-scale (half-mile) grid of one-way twinned collector streets, which contain a multi-use zone that can accommodate retail buildings, schools, community facilities and apartment buildings.

These mixed-use zones frame 40-acre blocks that use cul-de-sac and looped residential streets to eliminate through traffic. In addition, these blocks contain small parks and green spaces that help accommodate pedestrian and bicycle paths, which allow residents to cross a block on foot in five minutes. (See diagrams)

According to the CMHC, the fused grid plan provides a balance between cars and pedestrian movement by creating safe, sociable streets with easy connectivity to community facilities.

The CMHC researchers maintain that their proposed pattern offers a long list of advantages including:

• a 19 percent more developable land than the grid;

• a 10 to 15 percent increase in residential density;

• up to 30 percent fewer roads, storm sewers and sidewalks;

• from 8 percent to 12 percent more public green space and wildlife habitat;

• more clarity, connectivity and visual beauty with views of open space;

• efficiency, safety, and tranquility of the cul-de-sac pattern;

• greater walkable proximity to businesses in the multi-use zones;

• more efficiency and safety with the one-way twinned arterials; and

• repeatable benefits with the 40-acre cell.

The CMHC has promoted the adoption of the fused grid in Stratford, Ontario, in hopes that the city will show how well the new pattern functions. According to a CMHC report, the city has adopted a plan that incorporates many of the fused grid principles, including the 40-acre blocks, parks and pedestrian/bicycle paths.

It will certainly be a while before results of the early experiments of the pattern can be fully evaluated. However, with the possible benefits suggested by the CMHC, it certainly wouldn’t hurt Northwest Arkansas planners to monitor this innovative concept.

(Paul Justus is a regional planner with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission.)