On Woonerf and other Shared Streets, anyone with personal experience? (people, driving)

[nei]

There's a thread on the urban planning forum about shared streets, with some digressions. Seems like they're especially common in the Netherlands and maybe Germany. How well do they work, in your opinion? Are they comfortable to walk on, how much do drivers find them a nuisance? Is it common for children to play on them? If so, if a car comes do the children move out of the way for a car to pass, or is it possible the children don't and the car is stuck.

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[Ariete]

Those are not as widespread here, but we do have them. Mostly they are inner streets and driving through traffic is often prohibited, so they don't attract much traffic. Yes, kids play on them, and the number of accidents are strikingly low. Drivers tend to respect these areas and drive at around 15 mph speeds. Yes, the streets are a nuisance for drivers, so most tend to avoid them. People usually walk on the middle of the street, but give way if a car comes.

I don't see any problems with these.

Like here:

[viribusunitis]

We recently banned driving on one half of our main shopping street (Mariahilfer Straße) and introduced a shared street on the second half of it. It's a political scandal now, because the initial concept had major flaws...

Anyways, I quite like it. Since this street is always quite crowded, it's quite nice to just walk on the street now. Most people tend to walk on the sidewalk, though, which is huge...

Old Mariahilfer Straße:
File:Mariahilferstrasse1.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

New shared street:
http://media05.regionaut.meinbezirk....jpg?1376856907
Personally, I don't get it why people walk on the street when there is a sidewalk... Just leads to road rage.

New pedestrian area:
http://www.dialog-mariahilferstrasse...2/IMG_9758.jpg
Buses are still allowed to drive there