Greening Local Roadways – Integration of Rainwater Management and Transportation Design

The goal of the Celebrating Green Infrastructure Program is to build regional capacity through sharing of green infrastructure approaches, experiences and lessons learned as an outcome of ‘designing with nature'in the Greater Vancouver region.The third in the Showcasing Innovation Series was held on September 2006 and was  co-hosted by the University of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver. Three roadway projects were showcased: the Country Lanes Demonstration Project and Crown Street Streetscape & Fish Habitat Enhancement Project in the City, and the Sustainability Street Project at UBC. For the complete story on this event, please click here.

CITY OF VANCOUVER:  Crown Street, the City of Vancouver's first environmentally sustainable roadway, reflects a ‘design with nature'  approach to integrating rainwater runoff management and transportation design to achieve multiple objectives on a suburban street. The Sustainable Street demonstration project has provided a design that can be used as an inspiration or template for future street improvement projects. Crown Street built on the success of the City's award-winning Country Lanes. These  are an alternative to traditional asphalt lanes and have been widely acclaimed for their innovation and community involvement. Both the Country Lanes and Crown Street projects have  been overwhelming successes in terms of community involvement and education.

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA: Breaking new ground  at UBC, the initial phase of the Sustainability Street Project  focuses on revolutionary closed-loop systems – the world's first systems integrating  rainwater runoff,  wastewater treatment and ground source heating, and a small-scale biodiesel production unit which will transform waste cooking oil into a clean-burning fuel. The project is an educational resource that will evolve over time. The Sustainability Street Project on Stores Road is an opportunity for the University of British Columbia  to showcase the ideas and technologies developed and studied within the university, creating a gallery of invention and innovation that accentuates the interdependencies between people, infrastructure and the environment.

Posted on November 2006