In the 1950s, America decided it was time to pave its way into a brighter future. And pave it did -- with a special kind of hybrid: the “stroad.” Not quite a street, not quite a road, but somehow managing to be the worst of both.

These stroads are dangerous because they try to be two things at once--a high-speed road for moving cars quickly and a street meant for local access. They encourage speeding in areas with driveways, crosswalks, and turning traffic, making collisions more likely and more severe (especially with high traffic volumes on 4-lane roadways). For pedestrians and cyclists, crossing a stroad is a gamble, with wide lanes, long signal waits, and impatient drivers. Even drivers suffer: frequent stops, awkward merges, and poor sightlines make them stressful and inefficient compared to well-designed roads or streets.

Yet, America has been enthusiastically laying down these public safety abominations for decades, subsidizing the spread of parking lots, strip malls, and “why is this Applebee’s next to an auto salvage yard” zoning.

Now, in 2025, stroads blanket so much of the country (and Canada too) that the only way to avoid them entirely is to live in a remote wilderness cabin -- which, ironically, probably requires driving on a stroad to buy groceries.

One stroad’s worth of land (just its paved surface, not counting the “moat” of parking) is enough to fit several small urban parks, a block of mixed-use housing, and hundreds McDonald’s Snack Wraps laid end-to-end -- which is a stupid comparison, but so is devoting that much space to four lanes of pedestrian hell and a turn lane nobody uses correctly.

Ultimately...

The stroad eats land and life at an alarming rate while draining city budgets (surprise, parking lots on strip malls adjacent to stroads don’t make great sources of tax revenue!), killing pedestrians, and still somehow managing to be slower than an actual road and less accessible than an actual street.

By creating effective zoning regulations and creating a better distinction between the street and the road, we’ll decrease unnecessary and wasteful car usage (by creating spaces friendlier to pedestrians), while increasing tax revenue for cities.

Instead of targeting vaccines, RFK Jr should start targeting stroads -- maybe then, America will finally start walking and losing some weight in the process.