The City of Sacramento's first and one of the nation's longest "Green Streets" was completed last fall. The project brought new sidewalks for residents and businesses in an area that never had sidewalks; ornamental streetlights; and planter strips featuring 100 trees, 200-plus shrubs and 4000 perennial grasses planted over a new storm drainage system, instead of a traditional curb and gutter. It stretches along five blocks of Dixieanne Avenue in a transitioning industrial/residential North Sacramento neighborhood near a light rail station.
Instead of a typical mow strip, several planter strips double as detention basins for storm water runoff to collect and percolate through the soil before it flows into nearby streams and rivers.
Fences were repaired or added to complement the new sidewalks. The project also includes six streetscape elements of leaves indigenous to Sacramento. The metal and steel elements were designed by local craftsman Larry Meeks and range from four to six feet tall.
In addition to the greenery, the storm drainage system is a sustainable feature because the collected storm water run-off eliminates the need for irrigation. The storm water also is treated as it percolates through the soil, as opposed to flowing straight into the neighborhood's drainage ditches or storm water sewers.
The $2 million project was funded through Community Reinvestment Act Bonds designated for infrastructure improvements and through redevelopment funds from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. The City's Department of Transportation managed the engineering design and construction.
Image by MIG Planning & Design
A key element of the design is a new storm drainage system beneath a strip of trees, shrubs and grass, allowing for most stormwater to be captured, reducing peak flows and cleansing runoff.
Traffic-calming elements and a roundabout were incorporated into the street makeover.
The project serves as a template for additional streetscape projects throughout the city. It is also an important element of the Swanston Station Transit Village Specific Plan, a land use document guiding public and private improvements in the neighborhood surrounding the light rail station. 
oh those bath-tubs would be wonderful gifts for plants, groundwater, muggers and the homeless. I can easily see a street mattress and a sleeping bad and there is enough of a visual barrier that they can stand up and ask for spare change.
The concrete on the side of the road between the asphault and the curb should be brick capable of draining into the groundwater, they actually have porous concrete and most of what we now see as concrete should be porous concrete.
Sorry, recessed bathtubs...terrible idea...but for the liberal california liberal that sings kumbayah...well its just typical non-real world thinking.
Destiny, have you actually done anything that you preach? I would love BRO to let you post pictures and articles of projects you have completed to better the city!
Zing. Destiny sure is knowledgeable on the topic; but porous concrete sounds too liberal for me.
Who is going to lay someplace that is going to be wet most of the time... Homeless people like DRY places... you are being really short sighted.
Plus these liberals are going to be saving money for decades as all this water is NOT going into their storm water treatment plants, reducing strain, operating expenses and postponed expansions... Something your fiscally conservative eye should also see.. but you are too blinded to look past the headline.
'...well its just typical non-real world thinking.'
ChristieLou, you're an expert in non-real world thinking and you demonstrate it on BRO in every post.
WCP writes a nice article with great photos and an illustration about a community that is trying to better the environment -- how can Buffalo adapt this concept? -- and you shoot it down with inanities. I guess BRO readers should be grateful your still using small caps in your diatribes.