NACTO’s guidance on how cities can use streets to address climate change is back online!

The Urban Street Stormwater Guide illustrates a vision of how cities can utilize one of their best assets—streets—to address resiliency, manage rainfall, and reconnect ecosystems. 

From bioswales in the bikeway buffer zone to using street trees to improve the experience of waiting at a transit stop, the Urban Street Stormwater Guide is a collection of methods to incorporate green stormwater infrastructure into the right-of-way. The guide helps cities manage stormwater while reaping the benefits of street trees, planters, and greenery in the public realm.

First published in 2017, the guide was developed through a first-of-its-kind collaboration between city transportation, public works, and water departments. It provides cities with national best practices for sustainable stormwater management in the public right-of-way, including:

• Core principles about the purpose of streets
• Strategies for building inter-departmental partnerships around sustainable infrastructure
• Technical design details for siting and building bioretention facilities
• Visual language for communicating the benefits of such projects.
• Effective policy and programmatic approaches to starting and scaling up green infrastructure
• Insights on innovative street design strategies
• A framework for measuring performance of streets comprehensively.

Access the Urban Street Stormwater Guide free online, or keep a print copy on hand for quick flipping, team collaboration, and bookmarking your most-referenced pages. Order your print edition from Princeton University Press.