What you’re demonstrating is a lack of empathy, hence the downvotes.

Look: People gotta get places, even degraded subhumans like pedestrians. (/s, obviously, but that’s the message street design conveys.) So, imagine you’re walking, and you come to yet anothet intersection with yet another stream of cars in your path. You need a clear path to proceed and not die, so you need to cars to stop, or be absent.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not clairvoyant. I can’t see the future, or view remote locations. So, if you’re like me, you can’t cross because of the cars, so you push the button provided by the city to make the cars stop, so that you can move forward and not die.

But, then, and this is where the lack of clairvoyance comes in, there’s a gap in traffic that you did not foresee! Now, you face a choice: Cross the street while not under threat of a gruesome death under the wheels of a vehicle, or wait until you have the righteousness of a pictogram of a little, white man to light your path while you walk into the path of a speeding brodozer, hoping the driver stops in time. People with a survival instinct prefer the former.

Or, without the color commentary, humans need to cross the street to get to their destination with minimum delay. Asking them to stop, wait, and do a traffic flow analysis to determine whether they need to push the walk cycle button is unrealistic. They’re not actually out to screw you, they push the button so they know that they will eventually get a walk signal, but will go earlier if possible.

It’s a rational strategy to deal with a terrible system designed by some of the dimmest people on the planet, i.e. American traffic engineers.

Sorry if I’m getting whooshed, but their don’t know that they’re going to cross anyways. They’ll cross in whichever situation comes first.

I think it would be better if all stop lights were just red by default, and you had to push a button to drive your car across the intersection. Then you won’t needlessly inconvenience walkers.

Also the speed limit there might be 45 miles per hour. Crossing 6 lanes of traffic without a light may be impossible even if there is no traffic when you start!

A left turn lane, a right turn, and a through lane is normal?

No. No it’s not. That’s a design for a major artery, not for every single street with shops on it. If you grew up in the United States, and haven’t traveled, I’m afraid to tell you that you’ve never seen good road infrastructure in your life.

“I never walk further than my driveway, so I don’t see a problem.”

This is is about pedestrians having to cross all 6 lanes at that spot while cars rush past. I don’t care how good it is against congestion.

Next you’re gonna tell me they should ignore the friendly button, walk 100m and cross where it’s “only” 4 lanes anymore.

What are you even complaining about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad#Disadvantages

There’s also some very nice YT videos explaining the problem and better solutions.

This is what you describe:

This is how i think the intersection on the image looks like:

The difference seems small, but the amount of lanes after cars crossing the street is a big deal.

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If the outer lanes are only for traffic turning left or right, at the other side of the interchange there should only be one lane left. That is not how this interchange looks to me.

Why would you need three incoming lanes, though? Three outgoing makes sense temporarily, but you only need a single incoming lane if you’re going to go back down to two total, and the OP has three incoming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motonormativity

It isn’t normal to have six lanes (>80% of available land) to be exclusively for vehicles. I mean, it is normal in North America but it really shouldn’t be. The problem is two of those lanes could be a bicycle path with a tram line to allow for a lot more throughput while creating space for people to walk around and loiter which then provides increased opportunity for local business’ to create sales and boost the local economy. This would also have a knock-on effect of decreasing congestion (backups) because when there are other, viable transportation options, more people will choose not to drive. With less traffic, local trades and shipping companies will also experience greater productivity with less time spent idling, which also means less air pollution which in turn reduces strain on the medical system. Not to mention all the money saved by people not buying gas, insurance, doing maintenance, etc. (which can then be put into other industries instead of being tied up in transportation).

As well, with stroads like in the OP, all potential customers just go right past to strip malls outside the urban centre that are essentially only accessible by driving. If they do stop at places along a stroad like this they usually park, do whatever it is they need to do, then leave asap because it’s not a nice place to be with all the traffic noise an noxious gasses. With the intersection in the OP specifically, one can imagine a sort of town square where people can sit with their family and have dinner or whatever else. Instead, it’s a few acres of asphalt that raises the local temperature by a few degrees while creating a massive obstacle for pedestrians, especially if they have to cross diagonally. The heat especially makes it a really shitty place to walk through and can even be dangerous for elders or people with weakened respiratory systems. These facts, and the almost non-existent pedestrian infrastructure creates a negative feedback loop where more and more people are using cars to get around because of how awful it is to walk anywhere leading to more focus on vehicle infrastructure, and more people driving cars.

Using only personal vehicles to get anywhere is not a scalable transportation solution and greatly hampers economic growth outside of specific industries (that are usually related to vehicles). By providing other transportation options to people by using land that would ‘normally’ be used for parking or right/left turns (especially intersections), more economic opportunity is created, business’ that rely on transportation (shipping, delivery, plumbers, electricians, etc.) will become more efficient as traffic is reduced and people that live in the area will become healthier.

I mean, overall it’s just good for the economy to provide more options and not pave the entire place with asphalt.

No, it should not be normal. While we still have cars in cities (which we categorically should not), we must at the very least make sure there is no more than one lane in each direction, including most intersections. “Endless backups” are unavoidable with cars in any case because of a combination of basic geometry and induced demand. We should instead optimize for the safety & speed of other road users, literally all of which are more efficient than car drivers.

I see three right hand lanes there (as in, the side of the road closest to the camera has three lanes for a single direction of traffic), which means that it’s 6 lanes by default and widens to somewhere between 7 and 9 at the intersection, depending on turn lane configuration. That is unless you want to assume an unbalanced configuration where there are three lanes in one direction and only two lanes in the other, which frankly I consider unlikely.

Streets are intended for stops. Homes, driveways, shops. Low speed. Walkable.

Roads are intended for travel. There should be very few turnoffs, no surprise entrances, etc. Roads are intended to get you onto streets. Generally medium to high speeds.

Stroads combine the worst of both to make death traps, accidents, and make walking difficult, uncomfortable, or impossible.

You’ve got it backwards. Give them their own lane and priority at signals etc. Then they will get used a lot.

Although, surprisingly, he did mention those as exceptions.