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A Woonerf in the Netherlands and Flanders is a street or group of streets in a town or city where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over motorists. Woonerfs were popularized in the Netherlands in the 1970s as a reaction to the growing dominance of the automobile over bicycles. Blurring the boundary between street and sidewalk, woonerfs combine innovative paving, landscaping and other urban designs to allow for the integration of multiple functions in a single street, so that pedestrians, cyclists and children playing share the road with slow-moving cars.

During the first few years after World War II, Dutch transportation engineers began to emphasize relocating bicycles onto separate paths to accommodate the growing number of vehicles on the streets. This created a backlash, and the country soon moved in the opposite direction. Motorists were now forced to make accommodations for everyone else. The intent of this new approach was not to make cars disappear, but rather to integrate motorists and other users of the street into a shared space. The Dutch government developed traffic regulations for woonerfs in 1976, though the first woonerf was built in the city of Delft a decade earlier. Since then a variation on the woonerf designed for commercial districts, known as the "winkelerf," has come into use as well.

Woonerf is a Dutch word that translates roughly as "street for living," and refers to Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman's innovative and increasingly popular contribution to urban design: a streetscape stripped of lane markers, curbs, sidewalks, zebra crossings and other obvious boundaries denoting spaces meant for single forms of transportation. While at first blush such an experiment would seem to make the street more dangerous for its users, the woonerf actually ensures increased safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike, because of how the ambiguous design mixes otherwise discrete user groups.

Two key principles guided the design team: visual continuity linking pedestrian and car zones, and a lateral rather than linear approach to how people will use the street.

- As of 1999, the Netherlands had over 6000 Woonerven schemes in place. Under Article 44 of the Dutch traffic code, motorized traffic entering a woonerf or "recreation area" is restricted to a speed limit of "walking pace"

- Without any clear right-of-way, so the logic goes, motorists are forced to slow down to safer speeds, make eye contact with pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, and decide among themselves when it is safe to proceed.

- Traffic speeds fell by up to 8 miles per hour, and the speeds of faster drivers by up to 12 mph.

- Studies of home zones have shown they can reduce crime and encourage children to play in the street

- In Grand Rapids, Mich., property values increased by nearly one-third following traffic-calming measures.

- An effort to make downtown Melbourne, Australia, more livable spurred a 50 percent pedestrian volume increase over 10 years.

The number of outdoor cafes quadrupled and the number of cafe seats nearly tripled.

- After two through-traffic streets in Cambridge, England, were closed, daily traffic levels dropped by more than 7,300 vehicles with

no effect on retail.

- A survey of shoppers in central London retail districts found that those who walked to stores spent much more over the week than those who drove.

- In simulator trials, researchers replaced road signs and white lane dividers with a variety of urban design elements: red bricks were used to make the road narrower, and trees, shrubs and street furniture were placed directly in the right of way.

- Tools such as speed bumps, which are often used to slow traffic but do nothing to enhance the pedestrian experience, are not used. The use of curves eliminates lengthy sightlines for drivers.

- Cars can pass each other in a woonerf, but typically only in selected locations. The speed limit is typically about 10 miles per hour.

- A successful woonerf should instead blur the lines between vehicular and other space.

- The use of eye contact, body language, and hand signals determines who takes the right of way.

"What we've been trying to do is make the roadway seem more risky by taking out the stripe of paint ... and by making the distinction between space reserved for cars and space for pedestrians less explicit," said Parkes. "Then the driver makes his own choice to slow down, rather than just being instructed to slow down in what looks like a safe environment." Psychological traffic calming has the added advantage of being more aesthetically pleasing than a slew of road signs and traffic lights.

Continuous brick or concrete pavers will help define the entire street as pedestrian friendly.

Instead of the kinds of evenly spaced trees that traditionally line streets (Bain calls them "lollipop trees"), stand-alone native canopy trees such as Douglas fir and western red cedar will act as grand focal points. Angled parking, creeping ground cover, and the streetcar will reinforce an atmosphere of eclectic disorder.

The final guidelines include a low two-inch curb along the east side of the street and white warning strips instead of the standard bright yellow.