Showing posts with label street names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label street names. Show all posts

03 July 2024

The Woonerf Comes To Everett

4159... and just what is a woonerf? How about a chamfer, for that matter?

Everett, Washington is taking a number of approaches to revitalizing its considerably-extensive waterfront and making it welcoming to people. And, to that end, one burgeoning development, accessible from Marine View Dr W via Thirteenth Street, is a redevelopment of a large pier area where lumber and shingle mills used to rule; they're calling it the Millwright District. There will be retail, residential, commercial; all the urban things.

Circling the area is a new street known as Millwright Loop, giving the area the vague outline of a spatula when seen from above. And there's this:

Chamfer Woonerf. Photo courtesy Benjaming Donguk Lukoff, used with permission.

It shows up here on this street blade: CHAMFER WOONERF. It's a street which serves the interior of the spatula's blade.

And, of course, that brings us to the question of what a woonerf is, and as it turns out, it's simple to answer, and like the much-maligned bioswale, it's something we had all along and is nothing really new (we called bioswales French drains once upon a time and didn't make a big deal about it), but it does have a certain approach and attitude inspired by European point of view.

A woonerf is just a street designed to allow automobiles but also designed to accommodate people activites; some call it a living street; sort of a cross between a public plaza and a side street. People and autos share space. It became a modern thing in the Netherlands, where it picked up its strange name. And, most importantly, it's a street that easily gives itself to public events like street fairs and festivals. And it would be an ideal thing for something in the center of a destination district.

And a chamfer, for those who don't know, is a woodworking thing where you knock the corner off a form. 

So, Chamfer Woonerf. Strange name, but it'll catch on.