Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Netherlands A street in which pedestrians and cyclists have priority over motorists.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Dutch woonerf ("living street").

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Examples

  • The "woonerf" as you mention will not have any travel lanes, but will allow vehicles to come/go from both the Starbucks building and the vent building.

    Reporting 101 « PubliCola 2010

  • The "self-reading street" has its roots in the Dutch "woonerf" design principles that emerged in the 1970s.

    Boing Boing: June 13, 2004 - June 19, 2004 Archives 2004

  • Start with a pilot project of one woonerf (maybe at Thomas St.) and see if it improves or detracts.

    Put The Grid Back Through Seattle Center « PubliCola 2010

  • New elevated highway would win, Dan, because not everybody in Seattle lives in your little green urbanist bicycle woonerf echo chamber, and because more people than you think want something at the cheapest cost possible.

    Council Should Unite Behind McGinn On The Tunnel Cost Overrun Provision « PubliCola 2010

  • Just leave it a fussgangerzone -- no need to woonerf-ize it.

    Put The Grid Back Through Seattle Center « PubliCola 2010

  • Actually, the south portal tunnel ventilation building is going to be built along what SDOT has been touting as a pedestrian promenade/woonerf that would connect Pioneer Square/SODO to the waterfront.

    Reporting 101 « PubliCola 2010

  • Thus, unlike a training department, which normally consists of a single space for training, a learning woonerf accounts for all the learning processes, from informal to formal -- the organization truly becomes a "learning organization" rather than just an organization that simply does training.

    From Training Departments to Learning Woonerfs Donald Clark 2006

  • In 1998, the British government adopted a "Home Zones" initiative -- the woonerf equivalent -- as part of its national transportation policy.

    Boing Boing: June 13, 2004 - June 19, 2004 Archives 2004

  • In a woonerf, vehicles may not impede pedestrians, who in turn may not unreasonably hinder the progress of drivers.

    From Training Departments to Learning Woonerfs Donald Clark 2006

  • Only recently has the more Dutch version, the woonerf - a public passage that vehicles, people, and plants share equally - taken hold in a few North American cities.

    Crosscut Mark Hinshaw 2010

  • The woonerf, a type of road design that encourages multimodal transportation and blends pedestrian and vehicle space, was born as a reaction to the car-centric development that began dominating American and European city planning in the mid-twentieth century.

    What Is a Woonerf? | Planopedia Diana Ionescu 2022

Comments

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  • "We need to consider applying the lessons of a Dutch experiment, the woonerf (in Dutch, woon means 'residential' and erf means 'yard'), in which cars, people, and landscapes share space that used to be strictly a street, to our own cul-de-sacs. Why shouldn't low-traffic cul-de-sacs have pervious, grassy surfaces (still solid enough to support fire trucks), with benches and flowerbeds? This would promote the objective of a higher ratio of parks to pavement."

    - D. Chiras & D. Wan, 'Superbia!'.

    November 4, 2008

  • Because nobody wants a bunch of pervs hanging around their cul-de-sacs.

    "Woonerf", like most Dutch words, is simply risible.

    November 4, 2008