A road verge is a strip of groundcover consisting of grass or , and sometimes also and , located between a roadway and a sidewalk.
Road verges are often considered public property, with maintenance usually being a municipal responsibility. Some local authorities, however, require abutting to help maintain (e.g. irrigation, mowing, edger, hedge trimmer/pruning and weed control) their respective verge areas, as well as clean the adjunct and street gutter,
Benefits of having road verges include visual aesthetics, increased safety and comfort of sidewalk users, protection from spray from passing vehicles, and a space for benches, , 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
In the British Isles, road verges serve as important habitats for a range of plants, including rare .
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.
Certain nutrient amounts in a verge's soil can be influenced by the amount of traffic on the road it sits beside; roads with heavier traffic tend to have more nitrate in the soil due to nitrogen compounds from air pollution leaching out of the atmosphere and into the ground.
Sustainable urban and landscape design
In urban and suburban areas,
urban runoff from private and civic properties can be guided by grading and
for rainwater harvesting collection and
bioretention within the "tree-lawn" – parkway zone in
. This is done for reducing runoff of rain and domestic water: for their carrying waterborne pollution off-site into
and sewer systems; and for the groundwater recharge of
.
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.
For Santa Monica, another reason for this use of "tree-lawns" is to reduce current beach and Santa Monica Bay marine pollution that is measurably higher at city outfalls. New construction and remodeling projects needing require that landscape design submittals include garden design plans showing the means of compliance.
In some cities and counties, such as Portland, Oregon, street and highway departments are regrading and planting in road verges to reduce boulevard and highway runoff. This practice can be useful in areas with either independent Storm drain or combined sewers, reducing the frequency of pollution, treatment costs, and released overflows of untreated sewage into rivers and oceans during rainstorms.
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.
==Gallery==
street trees in the "boulevard" area, in Riverside, Illinois]]
in the "tree lawn", in Raleigh, North Carolina]]
in Oak Park, Illinois]]
in Shaker Heights, Ohio]]
in Shaker Heights, Ohio]]
Terminology
The term
verge has many
and
differences. Some
and
lack a specific term for this area, instead using a
circumlocution.
Terms used include:
-
Berm: Pennsylvania, northern Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Zealand
-
Besidewalk
-
Boulevard: Detroit, Michigan; North Dakota; Minnesota; Iowa; Illinois; Ohio; Wisconsin; Upper Midwest;
-
Boulevard strip: U.S. Upper Midwest
-
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;
-
Curb strip: New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington
-
Devil strip or devilstrip: Akron, Ohio; Northeast Ohio.
-
Drivestrip or Drive Strip
-
Extension lawn: Ann Arbor, Michigan
-
Furniture zone, also landscape 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
-
Grassplot: East Coast of the United States, Pennsylvania
-
Governor’s Strip: Delaware
-
Hellstrip
-
Island strip: Long Island, New York
-
Long acre – a traditional term for wide grassy road verges, used by grazing herds or flocks moving from place to place
-
Median: Washington, Oregon
-
Mow strip: SF East Bay Area Northern California
-
Nature strip: Australia
-
Neutral ground: U.S. Gulf states
-
Park strip: Ohio,
-
Parking: Illinois, Iowa, Western United States
-
Parking strip: Washington, Oregon, Utah, much of California
-
Parkrow: Iowa, Oregon
-
Parkway: Grand Rapids, Michigan; Greater Los Angeles; San Francisco Bay Area; West Coast of the United States; Casper, Wyoming; Ohio; Illinois; Missouri; Florida; Texas
-
Parkway strip: Austin, Texas; Fort Collins, Colorado
-
Planter zone: SmartCode/New Urbanist terminology
-
Planting strip: Berkeley, California,
-
Right-of-way: Wisconsin, Illinois
-
Road allowance: Ottawa
-
Road verge: Australia
-
Roadside: Australia
-
Shoulder
[Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, copyright 2007, page 1389]
-
Sidewalk lawn: Georgia
-
Sidewalk plot: Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Tennessee
-
Sidewalk strip: California, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Washington
-
Street lawn: Ohio
-
Subway: Western New York
-
Swale: South Florida
-
Terrace: U.S. Great Lakes region, Missouri
-
Tree bank: The Fox River Valley including Elgin, Illinois.
[ It states that "'Tree bank' means that area between the curb, the extended curb or lateral roadway line and the property line." Nearby localities with similar references include St. Charles, Geneva, East Dundee, West Dundee, Carpentersville and Algonquin. ]
-
Tree belt: Massachusetts
-
Tree box: Washington, DC
-
Tree lawn or treelawn: Ohio, Indiana, New York, and elsewhere
-
Verge: UK,
See also
External links
