Victoria’s Own Woonerf
I am not sure how it has taken me so long to write about what is definitely the most amazing pedestrian experience within a block of my house. Between Cook Street and Roseberry is Victoria’s only actively maintained woonerf. But, I am sure that many of you are immediately wondering, what the heck is a woonerf?
A Woonerf is a true shared street. Originally invented in the Netherlands in a grassroots way. It was a way for local residents to take back the streets and make it a space for them, while also letting cars move along it slowly. The first one was in Delft where apparently in the 1960’s residents tore up the street to make a true shared space for cars, bikes, and pedestrians. After that, the concept spread quickly across the Netherlands and into neighbouring Belgium as well. Today, while not a common planning concept in North America, it does get used in many places around the world. The idea of a perfect woonerf is a street with no sidewalks that is safe for pedestrians to walk and gather while also allowing bikes and cars to slowly move along to their destinations. A woonerf will usually have some pieces of infrastructure like a chicane or planters that make it so that vehicles have no choice, but to slow down.
Oaklands Rise, as the one in Victoria is known, is the only woonerf that I am aware of in Victoria. While there are plans to expand to space through improvements across a longer route; it currently extends really from Cook Street to Roseberry on Kings Road. The Oaklands Rise has been almost completely implemented through volunteer work from those living on and around the space.
When you walk along it, you feel like you are in a special place with the twisted limbs of Garry Oaks hanging over the street and the amazing thing is that that there has not been that much change to the street space. Just enough to make you know that it is meant for everyone to enjoy it. There are signs that tell you to drive slow and that it is a shared space and a couple of planters that the city has donated to make cars have to slow down but overall the street is, as it likely has been, for decades. One of the interesting aspects of the woonerf is that it is that it is almost completely without sidewalks, something actually rare in Victoria. I will admit that when I first moved into the neighbourhood, I saw the absence of sidewalks along the street as curious and possibly even a move by owners to maintain extra parking space, but since the moderate implementations have gone in I have completely changed that perception. The volunteers, led by John and Robin who host the Oaklands Rise website, have put in benches, a little free library, a series of native plant gardens and even a small park space that includes a pergola at Fernwood and Kings. There have also been two less successful attempts to place some road tattoos, but the tires and rain have made them almost completely disappear.
I know that the City has mostly been just accepting of the woonerf, rather than celebrating it, but I do hope that at some point they come to see the amazing work done along here and put some of their own investment into the space, as it could make it so much better. The road needs to be repaved soon, so maybe there is an opportunity to use some form of alternate paving material or colour to make the space even more defined as a true shared space. One of the wonderful things is that almost every time I walk along the space, I see something new that has been done, whether that is an expansion of a garden or a new bench.
I have included some photos of the woonerf but they really don’t give you the same sense that you get from walking along it. If you get a chance take a walk along the woonerf when you are in the neighbourhood. If you are interested in the woonerf or if you would like to get involved, I would encourage you to connect with Oaklands Rise on their website.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the woonerf and this sort of grassroots implementation. Are you aware of any other similar spaces in Victoria or the surrounding municipalities? Let us know in the comments!
