Woonerf - Greater Greater Washington

No curbs for Alexandria street

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 11:03:00 EDT

Alexandria wants to build a "shared street" (or "woonerf"), where pedestrians and cyclists have equal priority to cars, in its waterfront development. Some residents who've never seen one think it's a bad idea. (WAMU)

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Landscape architects envision a greener Chinatown

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:04:00 EDT

by Sarah Lewis

How could Chinatown be a greener and more livable neighborhood? Designers from the American Society of Landscape Architects and Fuss & O'Neill created a vision for an inter-connected series of green "complete streets," with new, safer bicycle lanes, a pedestrian-friendly "festival street," and a central hub for new street-level sustainability education programs right in front of ASLA's door (and below its green roof) on I Street.

All images from ASLA.

There's no time to waste. The city's complete street and green infrastructure guidelines, which are in place, will soon mix with more stringent stormwater policies that impose higher fees on private property owners that create runoff.

To green this neighborhood, any plan has to start with the streets—all of them. Beginning a new green neighborhood means tackling all the alleyways running off I Street that contribute to stormwater runoff. Just as Chicago has done with its innovative green alleys program, the neighborhood could put in permeable pavements along with underground cisterns in key areas that would preserve car access while absorbing water into the ground.

Along I Street, the intersections at 9th, 8th, and 7th streets could become green, permeable ones. What is now a source of huge amounts of runoff in the center of the streets could become a central place for absorbing rainwater into the underlying soils. Additional layers of stone or sand underground could also help boost absorption rates.

Crisscrossing an east-west system of green streets along Eye street would be a new north-south green "festival street" running down 8th Street, transforming an underused, garage-heavy street into an active, pedestrian-friendly zone.

Designed to be like a Dutch woonerf or pedestrian mall, this "B or C street," which means it doesn't get that much car traffic, could be designed to slow down car traffic so that pedestrians could move more freely between the National Portrait Gallery and the commercial complex at K Street.

Throughout this new green boulevard, which could be a pedestrian "arboretum," different materials would designate different realms—those for people or for cars. There would be no curbs, creating a flat plane for pedestrians. For 8th and other streets, redesigning the street so it can evolve may be the way to go. Kent Schwendy, senior vice president at Fuss & O'Neill, said many engineers want to simply lock streets into one use, but he argued that "streets change and their uses evolve. We have to let that change happen."

Where 8th Street meets I, new open grates would feature prominently so that "people could actually see that water moves through this area, even when it doesn't rain. This will help educate people about stormwater," said ASLA President Tom Tavella. But the street-level stormwater management systems proposed for I Street wouldn't be "lipstick on a pig," said Chris Ferrero, who runs urban planning and landscape architecture at Fuss & O'Neill but represent an "integrated series of events, a system."

Some 6 additional feet would be added onto the sidewalks, giving 2-3 feet for "green gutters along the curbs" and another 2-3 feet for a step area to get to bridges that would take people across the new gutters. Intermixed among the new green gutters would be rain gardens, which all inter-connect with the existing tree pits and proposed permeable pavement systems.

On 9th Street, creating a new "two-way cycle track," a dual-direction bicycle lane, actually creates an opportunity to create yet more green infrastructure. The bicycle lanes would be protected by a 4-foot "physical separation filled with plants, not just paint and bollards," said Tavella. That physical separator would not only protect bicyclists from car traffic but also help create a sense of place and add greenery.

The street may certainly need it: Wade Walker, Jr, head of transportation planning at Fuss & O'Neill, said the bicyclists he saw on that street were "up on the sidewalks, showing that they didn't feel safe being there."

Lastly, right in front of ASLA, there could be a new parklet, taking up 2 parking spaces, which would be designed to give people a place to sit and view the green roof education video and read signs about the new green features of the neighborhood. Throughout the district, "signage would show what a green street is about, what porous pavements do," said Tavella.

According to Nancy Somerville, Hon. ASLA, CEO/Executive Vice President, ASLA, the next steps will include pitching Fuss & O'Neill's concepts to stakeholders in the neighborhood, starting the fundraising process, and further refining the plans to meet the approval of the many DC government departments involved. Hiring landscape architects to turn the concepts into real designs also sounds like a next step, given the positive early feedback from the DC planning office.

At the end of the intensive, two-day design charrette, Chris Shaheen, who manages the public space programs with the DC planning office, said "we've tested many of these ideas here and there, but this brings it all together. This is what the city wants to do." The city knows, just like ASLA does, that really ambitious proposals like this are needed if the city will reach its goals of making 1.5 million square feet of public right of way permeable by 2016.

A version of this article was originally posted on The Dirt.

17 comments

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New, greener, safer, better design coming for 15th and W (Sep 28, 2012)

A closed street can be a living street

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:30:00 EDT

by Will Handsfield

On sunny days, Lafayette Square is filled with people. Tourists snap pictures of the White House behind them. Bicyclists and pedestrians enjoy a space where they, not cars, have the right of way.

Photo by JoshBerglund19 on Flickr.

Although two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue was closed for security reasons, it has become similar to what the Dutch call a woonerf (plural woonerven, which translates roughly to "living street."

A woonerf is a low-speed street where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over drivers. In practice, cars, bikes, and people on foot mix freely. Unlike a standard woonerf, Pennsylvania Avenue doesn't regular drivers, but it has taken on many of the elements of the woonerf. Security needs can also close them at a moment's notice. Therefore, I like to call this a "security woonerf."

Since the mid-1990s, cordoned-off areas have popped up throughout the city. Yet, few of them could be called security woonerven. Could this change?

The two most prominent security woonerven in DC are on the east side of the US Capitol and on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. In these areas, activity takes place mainly on foot or on a bike.

Although security vehicles operate in those areas, they're parked most of the time, so pedestrians and cyclists essentially have the run these spaces. These two locations are obviously popular with residents and visitors alike. Both are now important hubs in DC's expanding bicycle network and as important activity centers for all manner of activity: tourism, lunch breaks, leisurely strolls, running, you name it.

Following the tragedy at Oklahoma City in 1995, federal planners redesigned facilities to minimize risks to important buildings from motor vehicles. All across the city, barriers went up, starting with jersey barriers, giant planters, and police roadblocks.

Over time, these evolved into permanent hardened perimeters with bollards, sally ports, guard gates, and delta barriers. As much as possible, these elements were planned with an eye toward improving aesthetics, or at least in comparison to original concrete jersey barriers.

While the two security woonerven at the White House and the Capitol are great assets to the city, other cordoned-off areas are not.

The security professionals who planned these facilities gave little consideration to bicycle and pedestrian access. The spaces are attractive for walkers and bikers by default, because of their lack of traffic. However, it often isn't easy to travel into or through the perimeter of these areas.

Another security woonerf is in the works for E Street, south of the White House. As many commenters noted during the design competition, though, cyclists appeared to be an afterthought in most of the submitted proposals.

Often, small tweaks could really improve access into these potentially great spaces. Even Lafayette Square has access issues on the north side at the Madison Place sally-port.

The State Department closed C Street NW and segments of other roads next to their Foggy Bottom headquarters, but they have not replaced the jersey barriers and planters with bollards and other elements more hospitable to bicycle and pedestrian traffic. The House and Senate office buildings have several cordoned streets around them that only admit authorized cars, but the access points are difficult to get through by bike.

Although Union Station has closed off driving access through Columbus Circle for security, the space was subsequently devoted to passenger pick-up and drop-off, making this potential security woonerf very difficult for pedestrians and cyclists. Thankfully, work already underway on the Circle will improve upon current conditions.

Beyond these spaces, there are a number of closed campuses in DC which would greatly benefit from adopting some of the more successful security woonerven designs. Specifically, I'd love to see security woonerven at the Old Soldier's Home, the future Walter Reed development (both the DC and State Department portions), and the Washington Hospital Center.

Areas around the Pentagon, and Joint Base Bolling also have potential if security priorities are better balanced with pedestrian and bike permeability. Universities like Catholic, Georgetown, and Howard you can get through, but it's not obvious or direct. Even at the Arboretum and the Navy Yard, where trails and woonerven already exist, extended hours would vastly improve these spaces.

Regardless of why and how we established these areas, federal and local planners need to recognize their success, and understand their best elements. Then they can adopt those elements into sites that have potential, but aren't quite security woonerven yet.

Are there other places we could have a great security woonerf? Also, can you think of a better term? Whatever you you call them, if streets have to close for security, we would all benefit from making more of them living streets.

18 comments

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Slowdown in Sydney

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:35:00 EDT

by Erik Weber

The re-balancing of streets continues worldwide as Sydney, Australia plans on giving pedestrians more space in the downtown core, reducing speed limits to 40 km/h and introducing some shared streets with limits of 10 km/h. (Sydney Morning Herald, Chris R.)

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Residents want ped and bike Mount Pleasant Street

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:41:00 EDT

by David Alpert

The Mount Pleasant ANC wants to transform Mount Pleasant Street into a "pedestrian encounter zone" and bicycle boulevard.

Photo by the author.

A "pedestrian encounter zone" is also variously called a "woonerf" or "shared space." Cars can drive there, but instead of confining pedestrians to sidewalks and occasional crosswalks, the road design allows and encourages them to walk anywhere in the street.

Often the street itself is raised up to sidewalk level. These are common in Europe. Here's a Swiss example. Paris has most of its smaller market streets configured this way. Upon reaching the zone, cars drive up a small ramp to sidewalk level, then proceed carefully through the area until exiting the zone at the other end. The photo at right shows a Paris street configured this way; Mount Pleasant Street is much wider, and would therefore be less restrictive for cars.

Such a space would also make bicyclists safer by slowing drivers and giving visual cues that the bicyclists belong instead of being "in the way" of speedier travel.

The resolution notes that 40% of neighborhood residents do not own cars, and therefore giving more space to pedestrians would serve more of the potential customers for the street's stores. Instead of being a through street for traffic from west of Rock Creek to Columbia Heights, the street should serve people walking, biking, riding the bus, or driving to shop in Mount Pleasant.

The biggest obstacle to this plan could be federal standards, which probably don't sanction encounter zones/woonerven/shared space. DDOT pays for most street reconstructions with federal money, and therefore has to follow federal standards for those projects. However, creating this zone may not require fully raising the roadbed, though that would be ideal; signs, paint, and some street furniture strategically placed around the road area could make a good start.

42 comments

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Harvard Square: streets more complete, parking needs work

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:34:00 EDT

by David Alpert

I stopped to eat in Harvard Square today on the way to my parents' from the Boston airport. Modern thinking on street design has made its impact on the Square. Bike lanes have erupted all over the place since 2000, and the small Palmer Street alley, which runs between the Harvard Coop's two buildings, has become a pedestrian-friendly, woonerf-like "shared space" where pedestrians mix with occasional traffic and loading trucks. Here's the old alley, and this is what it looks like today.

The new Palmer Street, Harvard Square. Reprinted with permission from AntyDiluvian on Flickr.

Not all is rosy for Harvard Square; sadly, the iconic Out of Town News is closing, a harbinger of imminent social collapse.

However, municipal parking is still too cheap. As Greater Greater Mom and I were driving into the Square for lunch, we tried to find parking at the municipal parking lot by the Harvard Square Hotel (price: $2 per hour). Unfortunately, it was full, and private garages charge closer to $20 for two hours. She recommended that if we couldn't find parking, we just ditch the Square and drive on home to eat. She didn't want to drive around for a long time looking for a space.

Fortunately, we found a curbside space (price: $1 per hour), but Cambridge is missing a big opportunity. Greater Greater Mom decided she'd have been willing to pay $4 per hour to be assured of a space to park. Cambridge could be making more money, and drawing in customers who don't want a big hassle to find parking, by charging that much for these municipal spaces. Instad, Cambridge is underpricing their public parking and curbside spaces, missing out on revenue and scaring away potential customers who'll dine elsewhere.

81 comments

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Slower, messier, safer, better

Sat, 22 May 2004 06:51:38 EDT

by David Alpert

Reading about urban planning it often sounds like the engineers back in the 60s had no clue. They thought it was just great to bulldoze whole neighborhoods to build freeways partly because freeways made people drive faster, thereby reducing the amount of pollution they emit because cars are more efficient at higher speeds. But really it just encourages people to live farther away and drive more, increasing the amount of pollution (and traffic, and sprawl).

However, we still don't know everything today. This Salon article (watching an ad required if you aren't a subscriber) provocatively suggests that reducing devices like traffic lights and painted road lines in cities, stopping trying to keep pedestrians and traffic apart, actually increases both safety and speed. Safety because it forces people to drive slower and use their brains more, and speed because driving continuously around 20 miles an hour isn't worse than sitting at an interminable chain of traffic lights.

That's pretty radical, and I'd like to see more research to back this up before really believing it. But this is the kind of thing we need to experiment with to understand. Europe and especially Scandinavia, always ahead of the US in this kind of thing, is starting to. But it will take a long time for the US to get there.

We still have most state and local Departments of Transportation focused on getting cars to move faster, who still react to congestion by designing a new and larger freeway ramp with more separated movements. It's easy for engineers to believe that faster is more efficient - after all, it's true for most systems. And that's easy for voters to understand. Traffic just always manages to defy common sense expectations.

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