Woonerf is a Dutch word for “residential yard” or “living space.” It’s a technique of redefining the space of a street as shared by all users, including pedestrians and playing children, allowing for vehicle access, but not through traffic. Often the divisions between use zones, like curbs or road markings, are eliminated and everyone is given access to the full volume of the street. This may sound like a pedestrian mall, and that is a similar concept, but the woonerf is for neighborhoods and residential areas. That description might make it sound like a cul-de-sac, but the lack of through routes for cars is not on a street-by-street basis, but rather by zone or neighborhood. Meanwhile other non-car modes can move freely with extensive through connections to the larger network. Usually the layout of the space is very different from the typology of the road. And pedestrians – including children at play – have priority over cars. There certainly are also roadways that carry through motor vehicle traffic in such communities, but those roads, if they are _in_ the community also still accommodate all modes. The first woonerf took shape in the 1970s and by 1999, there were more than 6000 in the Netherlands.
