THIRD Avenue in Miami is now named 3rd Avenue Woonerf.
Let that sink in.
Woonerven in Miami, Denver (35th Street Woonerf), Minneapolis, Seattle and 400 other American cities. Sometimes they prefer to use “shared space,” but just as often the Dutch word “woonerf” appears somewhere in a local newspaper. Or if it’s not a woonerf, it’s a local traffic roundabout.
In Keene, New Hampshire, too many people were dying at intersections, so they built a Dutch roundabout (see photo). With as few signs and rules as possible. What’s wrong with you, the locals asked, appalled. Roundabouts with no right of way? But it works. On roundabouts, traffic accidents usually drop by about 40 percent, accidents with injuries by 75 percent, and fatal accidents by 90 percent.
COMPLIMENTS of Hans Monderman from Leeuwarden. The traffic engineer who showed Brooklyn author Tom Vanderbilt how he used woonerven and roundabouts to make Dutch neighborhoods and roads a whole lot safer. Hans is sadly no longer alive, but Tom’s book “Traffic” made him immortal among city councils all over the US.
Engineer Monderman once took writer Tom to one of his Frisian intersections where traffic flowed through without ever needing to stop: motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, mothers with strollers, trucks. Watch me, said Hans at one point: he closed his eyes, crossed the roundabout walking backwards, and reached the other side safely.
Hans Monderman. They call him Hans Brinker here because he put his finger on a very sore spot. Every year 9,000 people die at American intersections, and 800,000 are injured.
The town of Keene, initially so apprehensive about the one roundabout, now has five. And two more are coming.
* Hans Monderman
