The Cul-de-sac Conundrum

"Cul-de-sacs - those once-beloved icons of the suburban good life - have become something of a demonized concept. The growing consensus among urban planners is that these lollipop-shaped streets hurt communities by chopping up neighborhoods, isolating children, intensifying traffic woes and discouraging walking. Then why are so many still being built here?"

"People inclined to leave their cul-de-sac usually face the equivalent of neighborhood highways - a pedestrian nightmare of high-speed arterial streets that are unsafe for children and no fun for anyone...there are good and bad ways to build a cul-de-sac, says Randal Jackson, president of the Planning Center. One example Jackson likes is Woodbridge Village in Irvine, where paths and bridges link cul-de-sac neighborhoods to schools, community pools, athletic fields, restaurants, churches and a shopping center with a small movie theater complex. Although many of the streets look like traditional dead-end streets, pedestrian paths link the roads."