For the SFPUC, green infrastructure projects like Baker Beach Green Streets represent the future of San Francisco. Green infrastructure projects help manage the City’s stormwater more efficiently and sustainably, while also making communities more connected and livable. Completion of the Baker Beach Green Streets project and a series of green infrastructure improvements will help manage 2.6 million gallons of stormwater in the City’s Sea Cliff neighborhood.

The Baker Beach Green Streets project has created two new green streets along El Camino Del Mar and Sea Cliff Avenue, improving community spaces and accessibility while helping to ease the burden on the City’s combined sewer network.

The green infrastructure technologies featured in the project include rain gardens—including one at the entrance to the California Coastal Trail at 25th Avenue North— subsurface infiltration galleries and pervious concrete, collectively helping to harvest stormwater, diverting it away from the sewer and protecting nearby water bodies. Overall, the features completed as part of the Baker Beach Green Streets account for 6,746 square feet of rain gardens, 10,347 square feet of infiltration galleries, and 5,475 square feet of permeable concrete.

Along with the positive impacts those changes will have on the City’s sewer system, the project includes bulb outs—which will help to calm traffic and enhance bicycle and pedestrian safety—while providing water and sewer improvements, and roadway reconstruction along Sea Cliff Avenue.

To implement all the improvements, the SFPUC partnered with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (RPD), the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and San Francisco Public Works.

Green infrastructure projects are a crucial element of the SFPUC’s Sewer System Improvement Program, a 20-year citywide investment to upgrade and improve the City’s sewer system. SFPUC’s green infrastructure projects, along with innovative private projects developed through the Stormwater Management Ordinance, could potentially result in the capture of 1 billion gallons of stormwater using green infrastructure by 2050.

Last year, the SFPUC announced the launch of its Green Infrastructure Grant Program, a funding initiative available for both public and private properties in San Francisco for projects that manage stormwater runoff from a minimum impervious area of 0.5 acres.

The SFPUC’s green infrastructure program was spurred on by the City’s Stormwater Management Ordinance, a groundbreaking initiative to more efficiently capture and store the City’s rainwater. That program recently marked its 10-year anniversary.