Green Streets

Walking around New Orleans some years ago, it looked to me like the city had created green streets by default. Lack of maintenance or rebuilding funds had allowed many curbed street edges to deteriorate to the point where there were wide vegetated strips along them. I was told they have no property taxes there, one reason the city is so broke. That might be the point of a possible study – check the water quality flowing from streets with vegetated curbs against that on a new street with conventional drainage.

Librety Hills in Charleston, SC used permeable pavers in the alleys of the development. Oak Terrace Preserve in Charleston also uses permeable pavers in the alleys and also used curb-side bioretention swales that flow to pocket parks that treat stormwater. The Johnson Medical Center in Clayton, NC uses a large bioretention cell in its parking lot (not really green “streets” but a nice example).

Thanks for mentioning Johnston Medical Center. Here’s a link to some images of that project.

Johnston Medical Center

That was a unique project in that we had a client allow us to have the GC price green infrastructure vs conventional in the schematic stages. Green ended up being slightly cheaper, but also had benefits that don’t typically equate to monetary values and thus green won out.

We’ve also completed a green street in Nashville, Deaderick Street, that incorporates bioretention at intersection pop-outs and pervious concrete in the sidewalk.

Atlanta also has some LID examples, though not specifically green streets that I’m aware of. Georgia Tech’s campus has some bioswale/ retention features and there’s also a small college in the ATL area, but the name escapes me at the moment.

As Wes mentioned below, Portland is definitely the leader. Here are some shots specifically of green streets we have on http://www.sitephocus.com, predominately from Portland – Green Streets

Claudia. I’m not familiar your soil conditions in SC but I’ve heard that as part of the regular maintenance for these systems, periodic cleaning of the pore openings is required. I’ve heard that this can be done with a street cleaner or pressure washer and that this should be done to remove the buildup of fines 1-2 times a year. The Florida Aquarium in Tampa has done research on permeable pavement options in the SE. this link, http://www.lid-stormwater.net/permpavers_benefits.htm, has some helpful resources including the final report from the Aquarium study.

Wes. Thanks for the pic of that town in WA. i wasn’t able to find any other clear images on the web. Can you post the best of what you have? Thanks for the example.

I just wanted to share a few projects from Seattle:

1. Taylor 28 Apartment Building (Mithun) – Urban plaza/streetscape with several bioretention planters and porous concrete along the curb
2. 2201 Westlake Plaza (Berger Partnership) – Urban Plaza incorporating art-planters and bioretention
3. Piper Village (Berger Partnership) – Streetscape with curbside bioretention cells. Permeable Pavers and constructed wetland are also present on the site.

Aiken, SC is currently in the construction phase of a green street project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. They have installed several bioswales into a few existing wooded parkways that run along each street in the historic downtown. I was involved in a studio project in Aiken last year so have a background knowledge of the “green infrastructure” project currently being installed.

Here is link to a desription of the project:

http://www.clemson.edu/media-relations/article.php?article_id=2205