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Woonerf: It's Dutch for smart city-building
March 14, 2010
By Christopher Hume
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/yourcitymyci...onerf-it-s-dutch-for-smart-city-building?bn=1
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So David Miller found $100 million last week that no one expected. So property taxes and TTC fares won't go up next year. Who cares? The really big news in Toronto right now is that woonerfs are coming to town. In case you don't speak Dutch or happen to be a planner, woonerfs are streets designed for cars and people, but with precedence given to the latter
What? you may well ask: Pedestrians given precedence over drivers? In Toronto? Is this yet another example of the gathering War on the Car? Quick, someone call Rocco Rossi. The poor man will no doubt be appalled to learn that the neighbourhood now under construction in the West Don Lands will be organized around a grid of these new-fangled streets.
"The idea is to give pedestrians priority," explains Waterfront Toronto's vice-president of planning, Christopher Glaisek. "Woonerfs are a new street typology. They won't look like anything we've seen in Toronto."
Rest easy Rocco, he's not talking about remaking Yonge, or even Jarvis – though we can hardly wait for that – Glaisek is referring to the network of secondary roads that will be built in the area west of the Don River, south of King St. Until recently, this was a wasteland. That's all changed; for several years, an enormous "flood protection landform" has been under construction in anticipation of future development. It will also be the site of the 2015 Pan-Am Games' Athletes' Village, and after that, up to 12,000 permanent residents.
So what is a woonerf exactly? Picture a regular street, but narrow, minus a curb, finished with pavers instead of asphalt.
"There'll be a slight grade change to show where the curb would be," says Glaisek. "We're probably using stones to mark it. It's a visual treatment that makes it known to drivers that that they are guests." Though laneways would have served much the same purpose, the city doesn't provide services to alleys – but that's another story. That's why the most remarkable aspect of the project is that it's happening at all.
"The city has approved the concept," Glaisek says. "It's what we're going ahead with. It required the city to think outside the box and go beyond what they're used to. They wouldn't have thought of this on their own. In my view, this is a tremendous success."
No kidding. The struggle to make Toronto more liveable typically revolves around fiscal issues – jobs, taxes and the like. Rarely do we focus on anything as basic as the streets beneath our feet, unless it's to complain about potholes. But as Dutch and other European centres have discovered, something as simple as a woonerf can have a huge impact on our approach to the shared spaces of the city.
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March 14, 2010
By Christopher Hume
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/yourcitymyci...onerf-it-s-dutch-for-smart-city-building?bn=1
#################################################
So David Miller found $100 million last week that no one expected. So property taxes and TTC fares won't go up next year. Who cares? The really big news in Toronto right now is that woonerfs are coming to town. In case you don't speak Dutch or happen to be a planner, woonerfs are streets designed for cars and people, but with precedence given to the latter
What? you may well ask: Pedestrians given precedence over drivers? In Toronto? Is this yet another example of the gathering War on the Car? Quick, someone call Rocco Rossi. The poor man will no doubt be appalled to learn that the neighbourhood now under construction in the West Don Lands will be organized around a grid of these new-fangled streets.
"The idea is to give pedestrians priority," explains Waterfront Toronto's vice-president of planning, Christopher Glaisek. "Woonerfs are a new street typology. They won't look like anything we've seen in Toronto."
Rest easy Rocco, he's not talking about remaking Yonge, or even Jarvis – though we can hardly wait for that – Glaisek is referring to the network of secondary roads that will be built in the area west of the Don River, south of King St. Until recently, this was a wasteland. That's all changed; for several years, an enormous "flood protection landform" has been under construction in anticipation of future development. It will also be the site of the 2015 Pan-Am Games' Athletes' Village, and after that, up to 12,000 permanent residents.
So what is a woonerf exactly? Picture a regular street, but narrow, minus a curb, finished with pavers instead of asphalt.
"There'll be a slight grade change to show where the curb would be," says Glaisek. "We're probably using stones to mark it. It's a visual treatment that makes it known to drivers that that they are guests." Though laneways would have served much the same purpose, the city doesn't provide services to alleys – but that's another story. That's why the most remarkable aspect of the project is that it's happening at all.
"The city has approved the concept," Glaisek says. "It's what we're going ahead with. It required the city to think outside the box and go beyond what they're used to. They wouldn't have thought of this on their own. In my view, this is a tremendous success."
No kidding. The struggle to make Toronto more liveable typically revolves around fiscal issues – jobs, taxes and the like. Rarely do we focus on anything as basic as the streets beneath our feet, unless it's to complain about potholes. But as Dutch and other European centres have discovered, something as simple as a woonerf can have a huge impact on our approach to the shared spaces of the city.
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