Living Car Free - Would a woonerf work for you?

What the hell is a woonerf?

A woonerf is a street with people on bikes and on foot who have access to the whole street, not just sidewalks. The street functions as a public living room, where adults gather and children play safely because vehicle speed is kept to a minimum.

Usually car traffic can navigate these streets, but usually under 10 mph. It's a great spot for biking and walking.

In Des Moines we have one informal woonerf. A 1500 acre public park allows car traffic but sets the speed limit at 10mph. This means you can safely bike or walk...

If we had more of these, I think our cities would be a lot nicer.

http://www.livablestreets.com/streetswiki/woonerf




Woonerf is a Dutch word for an area, usually residential, where motorists and other users share the street without boundaries such as lanes and curbs. The term can be translated as "residential yard," reflecting its popularity in the Netherlands where private space is limited. In a woonerf, people on bikes and on foot have access to the whole street, not just sidewalks. Moreover, the street functions as a public living room, where adults gather and children play safely because vehicle speed is kept to a minimum.

Popularized in the Netherlands
Woonerfs were popularized in the Netherlands in the 1970's as a reaction to the growing dominance of the automobile over bicycles. During the first few years after World War II, Dutch transportation engineers began to emphasize relocating bicycles onto separate paths to accommodate the growing number of vehicles on the streets. This created a backlash, and the country soon moved in the opposite direction. Motorists were now forced to make accommodations for everyone else. The intent of this new approach was not to make cars disappear, but rather to integrate motorists and other users of the street into a shared space. The Dutch government developed traffic regulations for woonerfs in 1976, though the first woonerf was built in the city of Delft a decade earlier [1]. Since then a variation on the woonerf designed for commercial districts, known as the "winkelerf," has come into use as well.

I like the concept very much. There is a problem with it. I would prefer that there were no speed limits for pedal powered vehicles. Let the cyclists decide how safely then can travel. If the streets are empty or nearly so the cyclist should not be limited to ten or fifteen miles per hour. That would ruin down hill streets and times when getting someplace quickly was important.

Some big gated townhouse and condo developments here seem to have paved areas that aren't quite streets, but they aren't quite driveways either. I've noticed that bikes, pedestrians and cars instinctively share the paved space. From what I've seen, the posted speed limit in this kind of situation is usually 10 mph.

For me, riding in these places is basically the same as riding on a multi use path or in a parking lot -- I'm on red alert. Not really relaxing.

I think the litmus test for safety when there's a mixture of cars, bikes and pedestrians on a street is when you start seeing kids playing in the street. Streets are actually a great place to play. I mentioned a while back about a street I lived on in Canada... it was residential, but children would set up street hockey games and basically force the traffic to stop until they let them pass.

Another litmus test might be the sort of setup you see in Italy. Basically, people are living in the street. They take over the piazzas, sit around the monuments or the cafes extend way out into the streets. It's impossible for a car to gain any speed and people basically ignore them.

So, I'd agree with Platy. You do need to be careful, but if there's a lot of people living in these streets, you can assume they are safe.

I like the concept very much. There is a problem with it. I would prefer that there were no speed limits for pedal powered vehicles. Let the cyclists decide how safely then can travel. If the streets are empty or nearly so the cyclist should not be limited to ten or fifteen miles per hour. That would ruin down hill streets and times when getting someplace quickly was important.

Only problem I see with this would be an attitude adjustment for some people. You currently have people that can't share an MUP, how they would be able to share a whole street would be beyond me.

I love the concept and would love to see the car reduced to the bottom of the heap in some locations. Even in our downtown area cars still bully their way through and were given parking because the merchants cried about it. At one time the downtown area was car free, but it was also dead. It is slowly making a revival, my suggestion at the town hall meetings was to allow limited pass through traffic and handicapped parking only. They currently have a no bikes on the sidewalk rule that is heavily enforced, they don't even want them walked or parked on the sidewalks.:rolleyes:

Aaron:)

I like the concept very much. There is a problem with it. I would prefer that there were no speed limits for pedal powered vehicles. Let the cyclists decide how safely then can travel. If the streets are empty or nearly so the cyclist should not be limited to ten or fifteen miles per hour. That would ruin down hill streets and times when getting someplace quickly was important.

I lived in Seattle for a while, and used the Burke-Gilman Trail to commute. The trail is for both cyclists and pedestrians, and until recently there were no speed limits. As a result, pelotons of avid cyclists would form travelling an average speed of around 26MPH. If two pelotons collided travelling in opposite directions, that's a total collision speed of 52MPH!! There were also collisions with pedestrians who would cross the trail, and a cyclist would come around a blind turn at high speed and collide with them.

To help mitigate these problems, a mandatory bell or verbal warning rule was put into place, but with some pedestrian-cyclist collisions still occuring, eventually speed limits were put in place. In my opnion, an avid cyclist can travel far too fast to allow for unrestrained speed, especially when children are around. I've been involved in one cyclist-cyclist collision at an intersection, where we were both travelling only around 5MPH, but it was still enough to split my forehead open and daze the other cyclist.

I think woonerfs are great, especially on large boulevards and avenues in city centers and shopping districts. BTW, you don't even need speed limits for cars or bikes, if Dutch planner Hans Monderman and his followers are correct.

http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/hmonderman