Streets should be shared by people and cars, say the Dutch
Making downtown welcoming for all is also good for business, say Canadian cities
Canadians have taken to the Dutch idea that city streets should be shared by people and cars, says a Canadian magazine that focuses on landscape design. And it turns out that it’s an approach that is also good for local businesses.
A woonerf street has no division between cars and people, forcing cars to drive at a slower pace. Street furniture might be placed in the street and areas for community play are encouraged. It is as if a neighborhood suddenly gets a gigantic front yard. The Dutch word woonerf (plural woonerven) literally translates to living yard.
The woonerf concept was developed in the 1960s in Delft, the Netherlands, when residents were concerned about high speed traffic making its way through once-safe neighborhoods. Dutch traffic regulations let pedestrians use the entire width of a woonerf while limiting cars to 15 km/h. The idea has spread through Europe as well as Japan, Australia and Israel but there is no cookie cutter design for a woonerf.
One person who’s played a big role in bringing Woonerf to Canadian streets is Adam Bienenstock, founder of Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds in Hamilton, Ontario, and LivingStreets.org, says Landscape Trades.
His firm implemented its first living street project in 2012, transforming several blocks of Yonge Street in Toronto into a temporary Celebration Park by introducing trees, boulders, grass and logs, and an amphitheatre, three patios and a cedar fort.
Bienenstock said this initiative was designed to demonstrate how easy it can be, in just a few days, to unite the human and environmental potential of urban landscapes.
“For me, a living street is a tool. I’m interested in how people meet each other, how they relate with the natural environment,” Bienenstock said. “I’m interested in the relationship that nature has with our personal well-being, our ability to knock down stress and be in the moment. Our cities are uniquely designed to screw that up.”
Through the Living Streets Program, Bienenstock worked with the Cabbagetown Business Improvement Association to install the award-winning Cabbagetown Parkscape in 2022. It was not Toronto’s first woonerf. Eight years earlier, Waterfront Toronto introduced the concept to the city with Trolley Crescent in the city’s West Don Lands.
“From July to September, residents and visitors alike could stroll through five naturally designed parkettes, where they would discover public seating under shady canopies, spaces designed for entertainment for the community, and plenty of areas for everyone to explore, relax, and play,” says the Cabbagetown BIA. The Cabbagetown Parkscape “championed sustainable landscape design and environmental education while providing a safe way for visitors to engage with local businesses.”
Parkscape transformed 200 meters along Parliament Street into a natural oasis in just a few days, with 130 truckloads of soil, 3,000 tons of natural materials, 100 new street trees and shrubs and seating for up to 250 people. The parkscape “returned ownership of that street to the neighbourhood and away from the cars,” says Bienenstock.
The summer-long project had measurable environmental and economic impacts. It lowered street level temperatures by up to 20 degrees, increased foot traffic to local stores in the area by 50%, and saw a 56% increase in how much money shoppers spent. But it also had an effect on peoples’ thinking and behaviour.
“There's so much cynicism out there, like, there’s this dystopian future that we all face if we don't get it right,” says Bienenstock. “This is a hopeful thing to do. I have consistently had my faith renewed in humanity when we do these things. I've seen more kindness happen in these communities where people are in close quarters with one another than I have in the sorts of spaces where people are hiding from one another.”
“As long as you're doing this in partnership with the people who are there, and you go in knowing you'll probably have to tweak a few things, then you will be surprised at how well it gets embraced. So look for those opportunities, figure out how to animate a space, and the community will thank you for it.”
LivingStreets.org has since installed several more pop-up living streets across Canada, including Dartmouth, N.S., Laval Que., Calgary, Alta., and Vancouver and Surrey, B.C., often in partnership with TD Friends of the Environment Foundation.
Woonerfs have been installed in other Canadian cities, too. Montreal has the Woonerf Saint Pierre, and Waterloo has the Larch Street woonerf, a curvy-curbless street configuration that allows for increased streetscaping, including trees and seating areas, while accommodating various modes of transportation.
Winnipeg got its first woonerf in 2016, when John Hirsch Place was redesigned as a unique shared space roadway in the city’s historic exchange district. It blended traditional roadway improvements with innovative drainage solutions and streetscaping and landscaping. Previously, John Hirsch Place - once a spur line for the Canadian Pacific Railway - was a one way roadway with parking on one side of the road and sidewalks on either side of the road.
Community planters allow nearby residents and businesses to plant and maintain their own plants and take ownership of the area’s landscaping. In the evening, the road is busy due to the surrounding theatres and concert hall and many nearby restaurants, so pedestrian lighting was installed along the roadway.
A soil retention system made it possible to plant many more trees in the public right of way without restricting the road, and the sustainable drainage system reduced maintenance requirements and loading requirements for an aging sewer system.
Banff
In 2021, the Town of Banff invested $9.5 million to make a downtown block pedestrian-friendly. Bear Street’s aging sewers and water lines were replaced, and trench drains and soil cell beds were added to collect and filter rainfall and snow melt.
“We used underground soil cells for this project because of two things,” says Darren Enns, the director of planning and environment for the Town of Banff. “One for tree health, because we believe we’ve helped create healthier trees, but also to treat our stormwater drainage at the source so we could help the Bow River.”
The soil cells — roughly eight feet wide and five feet deep below the surface — provide up to four times more soil than a standard street planter, so there is more room for tree roots. Sensors in the soil cells trigger automated irrigation for the 80 new trees and other plants in the woonerf.
Landscapers installed 37 new planter pods bordered with rock boulders, which double as public seating. Removing four inches of concrete curb changed the environment, says Epps.
“We were worried at the start whether or not pedestrians would take ownership of the street and public space. On the very first day, in the very first hour, pedestrians moved to the middle of the street and asserted their control,” Enns said. “We had all sorts of backup plans for signage and cues to explain how to use the street, but it was intuitive, and that’s a credit to the design itself.”
JP Landscaping of Canmore hand installed pavers in a diagonal pattern as a visual cue to encourage people to freely cross the street. These smooth central areas can become temporary performance stages or pedestrian-only zones at any time of the year, and the town has created a skating rink and planted mini Christmas trees in the planters.
The level surface makes it easier for strollers and wheelchair users, and feels safer for all kinds of users now, says Enns. “We had a member of the public come and say how they love to bring their aging parent with dementia to the pedestrian zone because it was such a safe space to just stop and go slow. It’s quiet, stress free.”
In Edmonton in 2022, part of Jasper Avenue was substantially reimagined. “Downtown Edmonton has seen some challenges and needed some revitalization and some clean up,” said Chris Payne, project superintendent at Seven M Construction, the landscaping company responsible for installation. “Providing that little bit of a walkway and some natural areas like flattened boulders, along with the site furniture and everything else, combines into a cohesive area that people can enjoy. And as it grows, I think it can only look better,” Payne said.
As well as new site furniture, benches and bike racks, they added 125 mature trees, 1,474 shrubs and nearly 7,900 perennials. That encouraged ground-level businesses to match the new and improved local vibe, Payne said. “There’s still a little bit of work to do there, but I think it creates a nicer street. You see a lot of businesses, as the streets get cleaned up, investing in themselves as well, so that’s a benefit for everybody.”
The latest woonerf is in Ottawa, in an underused parking lot along the Ottawa River. The developers say the residential complex Odayanhaway—Ojibwe for “Little Village”— is “a new model for sustainable and affordable housing”.
Sources:
How Canadians are bringing a Dutch idea to life Landscape Trades, May 2024
Woonerf: The Dutch Solution to City Planning Nature’s Path, July 23 2017
John Hirsch Place – Winnipeg’s First Woonerf City Green.