Incubator escapee wiki

Road verge

Article Discussion

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File:Massachusetts-devils strip.JPG
A curb strip in suburban Greater Boston, Massachusetts. Outside of rural areas in New England, devil strips are narrow – the one pictured is Template:Convert 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.

A road verge is a strip of groundcover consisting of grass or garden plants, and sometimes also shrubs and trees, located between a roadway and a sidewalk.<ref name="worthington"/> Verges are known by dozens of other names such as grass strip, nature strip, curb strip, or park strip, the usage of which is often quite regional.

Road verges are often considered public property, with maintenance usually being a municipal responsibility. Some local authorities, however, require abutting property owners to help maintain (e.g. watering, mowing, edging, trimming/pruning and weeding) their respective verge areas, as well as clean the adjunct footpaths and gutters,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as a form of community work.

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, 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<ref name="rainwatercollecting">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="smgov">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="enewsbuilder">Template:Cite journal</ref> 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.Template:Citation needed

In the British Isles, road verges serve as important habitats for a range of plants, including rare wildflowers.<ref name=BBC-verges>Template:Cite news</ref> In the UK, around 700 different species of wildflower can be found growing on verges, including 29 of the country's 52 species of orchid.<ref name="NHM-verges">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Verges can also support a wide range of animals and plants that may have been displaced from their usual grassland habitats, as the soil is not extensively fertilised and relatively undisturbed by human activity. Animals that reside on verges range from small insects and amphibians, to larger reptiles, mammals and birds, which rely on verges as a corridor connecting areas of undamaged habitat. As a result, verges may be managed by local areas to encourage biodiversity and conserve the ecosystems that rely on them.<ref name="NHM-verges"></ref>

File:Roadside Verge.jpg
A sign on a road verge in Northumberland, England, indicating that the verge is being managed by the local council to maintain populations of wild plants

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.Template:Citation needed

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.<ref name="NHM-verges"></ref>

Sustainable urban and landscape designEdit

File:Treelawn2.JPG
Planted rain garden in the "tree lawn" zone, Raleigh, North Carolina.

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.<ref name="rainwatercollecting"/>

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.<ref name="smgov"/>

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.<ref name="smgov" />

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Rural roadsidesEdit

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.<ref name="pandora.nla.gov.au"/><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

GalleryEdit

TerminologyEdit

The term verge has many synonyms and dialectal differences. Some dialects and idiolects lack a specific term for this area, instead using a circumlocution.<ref name="tls">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Terms used include: Template:Div col

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Markham, Ontario; Kitchener, Ontario<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • 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;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Elyria, Ohio;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Miami County, Ohio;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Greenville, South Carolina<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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  • Planter zone: SmartCode/New Urbanist terminology<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Seattle, Washington<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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  • Road verge: Australia<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Roadside: Australia<ref name="pandora.nla.gov.au">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }} 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. </ref>

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  • Tree lawn or treelawn: Ohio, Indiana, New York, and elsewhere<ref name="dictionary-vol6"/><ref name="WebsterWorld" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Western Australia<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="WebsterWorld"/> Template:Div col end

See alsoEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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Template:Road types

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