Cul-de-sac

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For the Roman Polanski film, see Cul-de-Sac. For the musical group, see Cul de Sac (group). See also Dead end (disambiguation).

Image:Cul de sac.JPG Image:Culdesac0231.jpg A cul-de-sac (plural: culs-de-sac, pronounced the same way as singular. originally in anatomy: French and Catalan, literally "bottom of a sack" or "bottom of bag") or dead-end street is a street with only one inlet/outlet. A cul-de-sac is usually differentiated by having a turnaround area at its closed end. Both cul-de-sac and dead end are also used metaphorically to mean a line of thought or action which leads nowhere.

It also has a secondary meaning in military terms - where a cul-de-sac refers to a large encirclement of troops.

Culs-de-sac in modern urban planning

In modern urban planning culs-de-sac are deliberately created to limit through traffic in residential areas. While some culs-de-sac provide no possible passage, others allow cyclists, pedestrians or other non-automotive traffic to pass. The word also exists in Catalan, it has the same meaning: a street without exit.

Suburban culs-de-sac

Since the 1970s, nearly all new subdivisions in America have made heavy use of the cul-de-sac. Typically, there is one or several central roads in the subdivision, with many culs-de-sac of varying length branching out from the main roads, to fill all of the land in the subdivision. There are only a few roads (relative to the number of culs-de-sac) leading out of the subdivision, usually into other subdivisions or onto major roads. These changes can be attributed to real-estate developers' desire to meet FHA guidelines and make federal home loans available to their consumers[1].

This is in contrast to early 20th century American urban planning which emphasized a grid layout, partially out of wide reliance on streetcars, and alleys.

The use of culs-de-sac reduces the amount of car traffic on residential streets within the subdivision, thus reducing noise and the potential for accidents. It also essentially eliminates non-motorized traffic and most through-traffic. This, in turn, is thought to decrease crime and increase desirability, because very few people enter the neighborhood who do not live there, or are the guests of people who do. It also facilitates gated communities, because of the small number of entrances.

Criticisms

More recent evidence with culs-de-sac suggests that the lack of traffic may allow misbehavior in the street that a through route would tame by the risk of being spotted by passing motorists.

More generally, the New Urbanism movement has offered criticism of the cul-de-sac and other streets not intended to network with each other. It has been suggested that such street layouts can cause increased traffic on the non-cul-de-sac streets, make navigation (especially on foot) inconvenient and non-intuitive, and reduce the size of any given neighborhood to a single street.

This applies especially to back-to-front housing where the front of the house fronts onto the cul-de-sac lane while the rear fronts onto the main roads. The Macquarie Fields riots of 2005 were a result of this kind of urban design.da:Blind vej de:Sackgasse la:Angiportum nl:Impasse no:Blindgate