Road verge

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
• Mow strip: SF East Bay Area Northern California
• 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]
• Subway: Western New York
• 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

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]

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]

• 
  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.

• 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

Look up road verge in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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