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Culs-de-sac have appeared in plans of towns and cities before the automotive 20th century, particularly in Arab and Moorish towns. The earliest example of cul-de-sac streets was unearthed in the El-Lahun workers village in Egypt, which was built ca 1885 BCE. The village is laid out with straight streets that intersect at right angles; akin to a grid, but irregular. The western part of the excavated village, where the workers lived, shows fifteen narrow and short dead-end streets laid out perpendicularly on either side of a wider, straight street; all terminate at the enclosing walls. These quarters can also be seen as walled in, gated, guarded community; in this case, presumambly, to prevent slave workers from escaping rather than intruders from entering.
In the UK, their prior existence is implied by an 1875 law which banned their use in new developments.
Inferential evidence of their earlier use can also be drawn from the text of a German architect, Rudolf Eberstadt, that explains their purpose and utility: “We have, in our medieval towns, examples of the old non-traffic street, showing very commendable methods of cutting up the land. I ought to mention here that to keep traffic out of residential streets is necessary not only in the general interest of the population, but, above all, for the sake of the children, whose health (amongst the working classes) is mainly dependent on the opportunity of moving about in close connection with their dwelling places, without the danger of being run over. In the earlier periods, traffic was excluded from residential streets simply by gates or by employing the cul-de-sac”.[1]
It was in the UK that the cul-de-sac street type was first legislated into use, with “The Hampstead Garden Suburb Act, 1906”. The proponents of the Act, Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, thus gained permission to introduce culs-de-sac in their subsequent site plans, and they promoted it as a suitable street type for Garden Suburbs. Unwin's applications of the cul-de-sac and the related crescent always included pedestrian paths independent of the road network. This design feature reflects the predominance of foot travel for local trips at the turn of the 20th century, and presages the current planning priority for increased pedestrian accessibility. The 1906 Act defined the nature of the cul-de-sac as a non-through road and restricted its length to 500 feet (150 m). Garden cities in the UK that followed Hampstead, such as Welwyn all included culs-de-sac (see photo).
In the 1920s, the Garden City movement gained ground in the US and, with it, came its design elements, such as the cul-de-sac. Clarence Stein, a main proponent of the movement, incorporated it in the Radburn, NJ subdivision, which was to become a model for subsequent neighbourhood developments. The US Federal Housing Authority recommended and promoted their use through their 1936 guidelines[2] and the power of lending development funds.
In Canada, a variation of Stein’s Radburn 1929 plan that used crescents (loops) instead of culs-de-sac was built in 1947 in Winnipeg, Manitoba Wildwood Park, designed by Hubert Bird. In 1954, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation published its own guidelines[3] in which the cul-de-sac was strongly recommended for local streets and, as the FHA in the US, used its lending power to see its inclusion in development plans. The Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions in Calgary, Alberta also used the Radburn model in the late 1960s.
In the 1960s the cul-de-sac attained systematic international application in planned new cities such as Doxiadis’ Islamabad (1960). In the UK new towns such as Harlow (1947) by Sir Frederick Gibberd and Milton Keynes (1967) incorporated culs-de-sac and crescents in their layouts.
Planning theorists also advocated the use of culs-de-sac and crescents most notably, Christopher Alexander, in his “A Pattern Language” 1977 book (pattern #49). Doxiadis also argued their important role in separating man from machine.[4]
Unplanned culs-de-sac
Virtual, unplanned culs-de-sac have appeared in the centers of cities which are laid on a grid. Whole neighbourhood street reconfigurations emerged in several cities including Berkeley CA, Seattle WA and Vancouver BC. This transformation of sections of the grid plan since the 1970s has occurred in response to the need for the following:
limiting access to an existing but newly designated road as a major arterial and enable traffic to move smoothly on it and
protecting neighborhood residents, particularly children, from the dangers of traffic and for alleviating residents' concerns (see picture)
This selective, sporadic transformation continues into the 21st century. As traffic volumes increase and as cities decide to remove or reduce traffic on specific streets of central areas, streets are closed off using bollards or landscaping thus creating new, unplanned cul-de-sac streets and produce a new, functional blend of the inherited grid with newer street types. A recent variation of limiting traffic is the managed closure by using retractable bollards which are activated by designated card holders only.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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