Road verge

A road verge is a strip of grass or plants, and sometimes also trees, located between a roadway (carriageway) and a sidewalk (pavement).[1] Verges are known by dozens of other names, often quite regional; see Terminology, below.

A "parkway" with street trees in Oak Park, Illinois

The land is often public property, with maintenance usually being a municipal responsibility. Some municipal authorities, however, require that abutting property owners maintain their respective verge areas, as well as the adjunct footpaths or sidewalks.[2]

Benefits include visual aesthetics, increased safety and comfort of sidewalk users, protection from spray from passing vehicles, and a space for benches, bus shelters, street lights, and other public amenities. Verges are also often part of sustainability for water conservation or the management of urban runoff and water pollution[3][4][5] and can provide useful wildlife habitat. Snow that has been ploughed off the street in colder climates often is stored in the area of the verge by default.

In the British Isles, verges are the last location of habitats for a range of flora.[6]

Protection of roadside verge in Northumberland UK

The main disadvantage of a road verge is that the right-of-way must be wider, increasing the cost of the road. In some localities, a wider verge offers opportunity for later road widening, should the traffic usage of a road demand this. For this reason, footpaths are usually sited a significant distance from the curb.

Terminology

The term verge has many synonyms and dialectal differences. Some dialects and idiolects lack a specific term for this area, instead using a circumlocution.[7][8]

Terms used include:

• Berm: Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Zealand[9]
• Besidewalk[10]
• Boulevard: Detroit, Michigan; North Dakota; Minnesota; Iowa; Illinois; Ohio; Wisconsin; United States Upper Midwest;[9] Winnipeg, and western Canada;[11] ; Toronto, Ontario[12]; Markham, Ontario; Kitchener, Ontario[13]
• Boulevard strip: U.S. Upper Midwest
• City grass
• Common: New England, generally describes a large strip of grass. Also refers to park-like common-use green spaces in small town centers.
• Curb lawn: Kalamazoo, Michigan;[14] Elyria, Ohio;[15] Miami County, Ohio;[16][17] Greenville, South Carolina[18]
• Curb strip: New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington[9]
• Devil strip or devilstrip: Akron, Ohio; Northeast Ohio.[19][20][21] This term was once used more widely to refer to the space between tracks on a streetcar line, a space not wide enough to stand in as cars passed.[22]
• Easement[23]
• Extension lawn: Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Furniture zone, also planter/furniture zone or landscape/furniture zone: a term used by urban planners, indicating its suitability for "street furniture" such as utility poles and fire hydrants, as well as trees or planters[24]
• Government grass
• Grass bay: New Jersey[23]
• Grassplot: East Coast of the United States, Pennsylvania[9]
• Green belt
• Hellstrip[25]
• Island strip: Long Island, New York
• Median: Washington, Oregon
• Nature strip: Australia[26]
• Neutral ground: U.S. Gulf states[27][9]
• Out lawn
• Park strip: Ohio[1]
• Parking: Illinois, Iowa, Western United States[9]
• Parking strip: Washington, Oregon, Utah, much of California[9]
• Parkrow: Iowa, Oregon[28]
• Parkway: Greater Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast of the United States, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Florida, Texas[29][9]
• Parkway strip: Austin, Texas; Fort Collins, Colorado[30]
• Planter zone: SmartCode/New Urbanist terminology[31]
• Planting strip: Berkeley, California,[32] Seattle, Washington[33]
• Right-of-way: Wisconsin, Illinois
• Road allowance: Ottawa, Canada[34]
• Road reserve
• Road verge: Australia[26]
• Roadside: Australia[35]
• Sidewalk buffer
• Sidewalk lawn: Georgia[36]
• Sidewalk plot: Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Tennessee[9]
• Sidewalk strip: California, Oregon, Utah, Washington
• Snow shelf: Connecticut
• Street easement
• Street lawn: Ohio[1]
• Swale: South Florida[37]
• Terrace: U.S. Great Lakes region, Missouri[9]
• "That Narrow Strip Of Grass Between The Sidewalk And The Street": Chattanooga, Tennessee[9]
• Tree belt: Massachusetts[9]
• Tree lawn or treelawn: Ohio, Indiana, New York, and elsewhere[29][9]
• Utility strip
• Verge: UK,[6] New Zealand, South Africa[38] Western Australia[39][29]
• Yard sample

Sustainable urban and landscape design

Planted rain garden in the "tree lawn" zone

In urban and suburban areas, urban runoff from private and civic properties can be guided by grading and bioswales for rainwater harvesting collection and bioretention within the "tree-lawn" – parkway zone in rain gardens. This is done for reducing runoff of rain and domestic water: for their carrying waterborne pollution off-site into storm drains and sewer systems; and for the groundwater recharge of aquifers.[3]

In some cities, such as Santa Monica, California, city code mandates specify:

Parkways, the area between the outside edge of the sidewalk and the inside edge of the curb which are a component of the Public Right of Way (PROW) – that the landscaping should require little or no irrigation and the area produce no runoff.[4]

For Santa Monica, another reason for this use of "tree-lawns" is to reduce current beach and Santa Monica Bay ocean pollution that is measurably higher at city outfalls. New construction and remodeling projects needing building permits require that landscape design submittals include garden design plans showing the means of compliance.[4]

In some cities and counties, such as Portland, Oregon, street and highway departments are regrading and planting rain gardens in road verges to reduce boulevard and highway runoff. This practice can be useful in areas with either independent Storm sewers or combined storm and sanitary sewers, reducing the frequency of pollution, treatment costs, and released overflows of untreated sewage into rivers and oceans during rainstorms.[40]

Rural roadsides

In some countries, the road verge can be a corridor of vegetation that remains after adjacent land has been cleared. Considerable effort in supporting conservation of the remnant vegetation is prevalent in Australia, where significant tracts of land are managed as part of the roadside conservation strategies by government agencies.[35][41]

Gallery

• 
  Ginkgo street trees in the "boulevard" area, in Riverside, Illinois
• 
  A planted garden in the "tree lawn", in Raleigh, North Carolina
• 
  A curb strip in suburban Greater Boston, Massachusetts. Outside of rural areas in New England, devil strips are narrow – the one pictured is 52 inches (130 cm; 1.3 m) from curb to sidewalk. They are usually not maintained by the municipality, but rather by the property owner, and are used primarily to provide space for utility poles.

See also

• Central reservation
• Roadside conservation
• Shoulder (road)
• Urban forestry
• Long acre – a traditional term for wide grassy road verges, used by grazing herds or flocks moving from place to place
• Category:Environmental conservation

References

1. "Street Trees / Tree Lawn". Worthington. City of Worthington, Ohio. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
2. "Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access, Part II of II: Best Practices Design Guide, Section 10.1.3: Maintenance responsibilities". Bicycle and Pedestrian Program. Federal Highways Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. 25 September 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
3. Delost, Jeremy (19 September 2009). "Passive Rainwater Harvesting". The Rainwater Observer. Archived from the original on 23 December 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
4. Parkway Landscaping Policy for the City of Santa Monica (PDF), City of Santa Monica, California, 1 February 2010, archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2010, retrieved 7 July 2010
5. "Pruning the Parkway Strip". WaterWise. 4 (3). 14 March 2007. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
6. Briggs, Helen (6 June 2015). "Roadside verges 'last refuge for wild flowers'". BBC News. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
7. Greppin, John A. C. (1 February 2002). "The triumph of slang". The Times Literary Supplement. Times Newspapers Limited. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
8. "What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road? (Harvard Dialect Survey)".
9. Hall, Joan Houston, ed. (2013). Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume VI: Contrastive Maps, Index to Entry Labels, Questionnaire, and Fieldwork Data (1st ed.). Harvard University Press. pp. 130–131. ISBN 978-0674066533.
10. "Between the sidewalk and the curb". The Atlantic. 7 December 1998. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
11. Boulevard Gardening Guidelines (PDF), City of Vancouver, British Columbia, retrieved 28 October 2017
12. "TORONTO MUNICIPAL CODE CHAPTER 743, STREETS AND SIDEWALKS, USE OF" (PDF). Toronto. June 11, 2020.
13. https://www.kitchener.ca/en/resourcesGeneral/Documents/DSD_ENG_C-of-K---Standard-Specifications_November-2017.pdf
14. "Departments : Public Services : Public Works : Fall Leaf Collection". City of Kalamazoo. Archived from the original on 2012-09-20. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
15. Rona Proudfoot (March 26, 2012). "Police find man dead in curb lawn". The Chronicle-Telegram. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
16. "Summer Tree Care" (PDF). City of Tipp City. June 1, 2012. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
17. "Who Do I Call?". City of Troy. Archived from the original on 2012-05-10. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
18. "Design and Specifications Manual". City of Greenville. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-06-05. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
19. "Mr. Smarty Pants". The Austin Chronicle. 2000-12-29.
20. Cassidy, Frederic Gomes; Hall, Joan Houston (1985). Dictionary of American Regional English: Introduction and A-C (6th ed.). Harvard University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-674-20511-6. Retrieved 2009-03-20. devil strip.
21. Dyer, Bob (August 8, 2012). "Akron's Grass is One of a Kind". Akron Beacon Journal. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
22. Hilton, George W.; Due, John F. (1960). The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8047-4014-2.
23. Various posters (17 July 2008). "Who is responsible for the strip of land between sidewalk and curb?". HOA Forum. HOATalk.com. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
24. Foster Road Transportation & Streetscape Plan (PDF), Office of Transportation, City of Portland, Oregon, 9 July 2003, pp. 10–12 and 14–15
25. Hadden, Evelyn (2014). Hellstrip Gardening: Create a Paradise between the Sidewalk and the Curb. Photography by Joshua McCullough. Timber Press. ISBN 978-1604693324.
26. "Nature Strip". The Local Government & Municipal Knowledge Base. Retrieved 22 March 2012.
27. Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Random House, Inc. 1997.
28. "Weed Abatement". City of Ashland. City of Ashland, Oregon. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
29. Guralnik, David B., ed. (1970). Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Second College ed.). The World Publishing Company.
30. "Xeric Parkway Strip: Xeriscape Plants for Tough Conditions". The Gardens on Spring Creek. City of Fort Collins, Colorado. 7 July 2010. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
31. "Codes & Manuals". Center for Applied Transect Studies. Retrieved 19 June 2011.
32. "Tree Planting". TREES/PARKS. Parks Division, City of Berkeley, California. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
33. "Food Gardening". City of Seattle, Washington. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
34. "Roads". City of Ottawa. City of Ottawa, Ontario. 2012. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
35. "Roadside Conservation Values". Indigo Shire Council. Indigo Shire Council. 2007. Archived from the original on 9 November 2007. Retrieved 10 March 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
36. Dickstein, Corey (20 July 2009). "Sidewalk lawns now residents' responsibility". Savannah Morning News. Gatehouse Media, LLC.
37. "Urban Forestry - Adopt-a-Tree Program". City of Fort Lauderdale. City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
38. "Open By-laws South Africa". Open By-laws South Africa. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
39. "Verge". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
40. "Sustainable Stormwater Management". Retrieved 2010-04-28.
41. Western Australia. Roadside Conservation Committee (1995), Roadsides -- the vital link : a decade of roadside conservation in Western Australia (1985-1995), Roadside Conservation Committee, retrieved 2012-04-14

External links

• Parkway with xeric garden photographs
• Devil Strips – term's use and lore