"THE WINKELERF". IMPROVING ENVIRONMENT FOR PEDESTRIANS IN SHOPPING STREETS, WITHOUT BANNING ALL CARS

Many Dutch cities suffered from an overdose of (through) traffic in their shopping-streets. Especially since the sixties a great number of cities therefore created pedestrian-streets in their main shopping-areas. At first the pedestrianization often met with strong opposition from retailers in the area involved. After some time however, most pedestrianized areas proved to be (economically) successful, so this last decade pedestrianization is mostly approved by retailers, even if the situation is not ideal for implementing a pedestrian-street. The success of pedestrianization depends very much upon the "character" of the street. Generally speaking one can say that food stores do not fit in a pedestrian-street, and non-food stores do. When a shopping-street is really used for "shopping" the environmental quality is very important, and accessibility is relatively less important. In that case pedestrianization may be considered. When on the other hand visiting shops in a shopping-street has a character of doing (daily) purchases, accessibility is much more important than environment. In reality many traditional shopping-streets show a mixture of "shopping" and "purchasing". In these cases pedestrianization would go too far, and leaving it a traffic-street flanked with shops not far enough. In these cases some Dutch cities have implemented a "winkelerf". A "winkelerf" is a way of improving the pedestrian quality of a shopping-street, without banning all traffic completely. This is achieved by an environmental design that makes it obvious that priority lies with the pedestrian, and that car and bicycles are permitted in the street as "guests". In many ways the "winkelerf" idea is analogous to the "woonerf" concept, but there are also very essential differences. The paper deals with the characteristics of the "winkelerf", conditions that should be met when implementing a "winkelerf" and the problems that may arise. An important point are the criteria that influence the choice if, and how much traffic should be banned (how strong are the characteristics of "shopping" and "purchasing", and how to measure them). The variety and the flexibility of the "winkelerf" designs will be discussed. (Author/TRRL)

  • Availability:
  • Supplemental Notes:
    • Pedestrians and Traffic. Proceedings of Seminar L held at the PTRC 10th Summer Annual Meeting, University of Warwick, England.
  • Corporate Authors:

    PTRC Education and Research Services Limited

    110 Strand
    London WC2,   England 
  • Authors:
    • STIENSTRA, S
  • Conference:
  • Publication Date: 1982

Media Info

  • Features: References;
  • Pagination: p. 231-234

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00381666
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
  • ISBN: 0-86050-111-6
  • Files: ITRD, TRIS
  • Created Date: Mar 30 1984 12:00AM