North American has this concept in roadway design where traffic engineers feel the need to make every roadway large. Think of interstate interchanges.

There is also this need to try and design roadways as both roads and streets, while maintaining the flow of high speed traffic at the same. This leaves us with neither good roads or enjoyable streets.

Roads get you from point A to point B without regard for what’s in between or along the route. They are meant to move large amounts of traffic with minimal to no lights/stops/driveways.

Streets on the other hand are “destinations” and are meant for the people that live along them. Streets are traffic calmed, streets give the right of way to pedestrians. Streets have driveways, and multiple interaction zones between people on foot, on bikes, and on cars.

A street cannot act as a road nor can a road act as a street.

This image trys to turn the underpass into a street (which it can be), but it’s main function is still designed as a high-speed roadway. So this leaves us with a combination of the two (a strode) which neight is a good road or a enjoyable street for the local community.

Some examples of simplified highway off ramps that connect directly into traffic calmed streets.

City planing also plays a role here, and its usually has to do how our we build city centres right next to highway off ramps. This leaves no room for proper roadway design where you “stepdown” your roadway classification.

Good planing would have a interstate (130-100kph) connect to a highway (100-80kph), which then empties into a high-speed road (80-60kph), which steps down to a road 50-40kph, and then transitions into a street (30-10kph).

Instead we have interstate highways empty right into a city street.