What could have been San Francisco’s first fully permeable paved street, a kind of street design that allows rainwater to seep into the soil to reduce runoff, has been abandoned: Mission District neighbors had a list of concerns over the project, and the city will have to start its search for a suitable roadway all over.
“The [San Francisco Public Utilities Commission] will continue to explore alternative locations to pilot a full-width permeable roadway as part of our citywide green infrastructure strategy to help improve San Francisco’s storm resilience,” the commission wrote.
The “permeable pavement” would have transformed Cumberland Street between Guerrero and Dolores streets into a European-looking brick street. From the beginning, though, neighbors were divided. They had also long sought speed bumps to slow down cars on the street, but when the city said the two couldn’t go together, neighbors chose the speed bumps.
“The removal of the speed bumps was an engineering issue,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission wrote in a statement. “Integrating the existing speed cushions with the proposed permeable pavement was determined to be structurally infeasible.”
Too often, said Tom Radulovich, an environmental and transportation advocate who lives on Cumberland and pushed for the project, cars drive fast down their street as a shortcut when Dolores or Guerrero have heavy traffic, endangering kids who live on the block.
Losing the speed bumps was not a compromise the neighborhood was ready to make, and the Public Utilities Commission said they could not offer an alternative solution.
The benefits of permeable paved streets are many, according to supporters: They allow rain to seep through the roadway instead of flooding, especially during heavy rains. The pavement also filters out pollutants.
Radulovich started advocating for the project to come to Cumberland over a year ago, because the city was already planning to replace Cumberland’s sewer lines next year. The Public Utilities Commission also already had funding for permeable projects through its Green Infrastructure Grant.
“This is an effective solution to flooding and to water pollution,” said Radulovich, who said permeable pavement is especially helpful when the city experiences a large surge in runoff water from heavy rains, ensuring drainage systems are not overwhelmed.
The geography of Cumberland, Radulovich said, also gave it an advantage: If some of the runoff water traveling down from higher elevation were absorbed, less of it would make its way to Folsom, Harrison and Treat streets, where flooding has long been a problem. Every rainy season, neighbors in those areas pack their entryways with sandbags and watch the water rise, sometimes suffering damage that has caused beloved businesses to close.
“If you can filter it down through the soil, and then it takes hours or days to get back into the sewer system, that’s really helpful, because you’ve flattened the curve,” he added.
San Francisco currently uses this technique on some parking lanes across the Wiggle, Fell Street and at the parking lot of St. Anne of the Sunset Catholic church.
The Cumberland project would have been an effort to expand this infrastructure to an entire street using concrete paver bricks, and the city chose the block of Cumberland Street between Guerrero and Dolores streets after studying the feasibility of the project and Radulovich’s advocacy.
Just to clarify a few points made in the article- the material proposed is pervious concrete, and has been around for close to a hundred years. It is not optimal for paving in streets but is great for parking lots and areas that do not receive a lot of heavy vehicle traffic. I am a retired civil engineer and designed many pervious concrete parking lots in the bay area, mainly in the East Bay and they are all doing well. Its use eliminates the need for storm drains and recharges the groundwater table. I think it is a great paving method and recommended it to my clients whenever feasible. Pervious concrete pavers can be used for smaller projects like sidewalks and driveways but certainly are not recommended for streets because they can settle under heavy traffic loads. The problem with flooding in San Francisco could be mitigated by separating the storm drain and sewer systems and directing the storm water into the bay like every other city instead of sending it to the sewage treatment plant and going through the expense of treating it. Traffic calming devices like the existing wider “speed humps” mentioned in your article are preferable to the narrower “speed bumps” but, as mentioned, cannot be supported on pervious concrete or especially any kind of pavers.
The “humps” are only preferable if you want to allow people to drive fast over them. Which defeats the purpose.
Again, it’s for ambulances. You don’t have to ride in one I assume to understand the necessity. Cyclists may not care about the injured, but perhaps someday they might?
The bay is cleaner and less polluted than it would be if we changed around the entire sewer system to make your bespoke roadways feasible – but that’s not happening, and we can’t afford it, so how about finding an actual problem to solve instead? We have those, and we don’t have the money to repave streets for fancypants transplants. Traffic is not going to be calmed either way because we don’t enforce traffic laws and the bumps do barely anything. It’s entirely a waste. So unless you’d like to find the Billions to do it, let’s attend to the numerous actual problems in this city instead of inventing new ones right out of the dirt.
bespoke, bespoke, bespoke…
Did we vote on it? Nope. The ditherers in Carlton-Goodlett are happy to study the waste of millions to the “non”-profit of their choosing, nevermind the deficit, pending MUNI cuts, deteriorating actually-needed infrastructure like roads and sidewalks and pipes, not experimental speed bumps that only Waymo slows down for because it’s programmed to.
Nobody voted in Elon, and nobody in SF voted in wasting millions for no benefit. Project Zero = the coffers, while pedestrian deaths hit record highs last year. Deal with it yuppies, your graft accomplishes zero actual goals. The Breed era is over, it’s time to pay the bills again. Ante up or hush about your bespoke bicycleways and permeable streets – as if groundwater recharge in SF were a serious necessity in 2025, give us a break please yuppies and pseudo-futurist dork allies of anything at all.
How about bulbouts and chicanes to narrow the street? Those work better than speed bumps and should be compatible with brick.
How about you pave it and call it a street and stop blowing Millions on BS experimentation at the literal expense of the public? How about speed humps or whatever they call them now does NOTHING, painted lanes and bulbouts and the rest of that does NOTHING. That’s the hot stat of the day – it does nothing, you’re paying for it anyway – forever. Perpetually. Because nobody stands up to the graft that accomplishes literally nothing useful. Project Zero? Most deaths last year in the history of the Millions wasted. They need to get real people in charge now. This “make SF Paris again” BS needs to die under a freeway.
Permeable roadways are not an experimental technology. It’s frankly an embarrassment that we are so far behind the times here.
Hear me out: turnabouts at each intersection with a large area of plants in the center to allow water to permeate into the soil.
It’s frankly an embarrassment that transplant transit-yuppies don’t move back to NYC with their money wasting imaginary necessities that SF can’t afford. If you’d like to come up with a Billion dollars and donate it to your bespoke artisan road projects, fine, but spending our money on these wasteful fancy-fart corrupt “non-profit” pseudo-industries is ridiculous and requires pushback from taxpayers, right the hell now. Enough is enough. Put up the money or shush.
FSCK the “non” profits. Their boards drink millions of taxpayer money FOR NO IMPROVEMENT. Literally the same number or greater of pedestrian deaths per year PROVES that their millions are completely wasted as they demand ever more.
It’s really a shame that the speed bumps won out. I’m curious to know if the neighbors who advocated for them have ever seen speed bumps in the city. They don’t work, except on cars with exceptionally low ground clearance.
Does anyone know (and can provide evidence) why the speed bumps have the cut-outs? Is that to allow the fire department to drive at full speed?
These so-called “speed cushions” are ridiculous. They basically allow anyone driving down the center of the road to stay at full speed through the cutouts – particularly the most dangerous vehicles: Large trucks. It’s as if emergency vehicles can’t handle going over a bump.
It’s for ambulance patients primarily, but good thing whiny cyclists will never require an ambulance ride due to spine/neck injury…
Ambulances FD and PD. “Traffic calming” as a concept doesn’t do anything without enforcement except causing the replacement of the front teeth for cyclists who then sue the city for millions.
I remember being in Edinburgh in the 1980s and they were putting asphalt over all the old cobble streets so that it was smoother for cars. Guess what they’re doing now? The cobbles are all coming back because they keep people driving nice and slow. Plus its a labor intensive activity that hires local workers instead of buying a petroleum product from a large corporation.
The bicycle coalition would scream bloody murder if they were made to ride old-worldy, worn out cobble stone streets of yore. What’s going in today is nice and smooth. Unlike stretches of permeable pavement BTW.
Hi, civil engineer/expert here. There are several alternatives to permeable pavement that are less expensive with better performance characteristics. It is good this project was cancelled, but should not have gone as far into planning as it did.
so you send time on a project that will not come to fruition? How many planning, engineering, outreach hours occurred? The city doesn’t have this type of money to spend anymore. Tighten up your belts, it’s going to be a long 3 year 10 months to go.
Potholes are permeable, and all they require is planned zero budget non maintenance. Win-win.
This is a laugher. The prime supporter of the bricks is also the prime supporter of the speed bumps. There is one other issue at hand here. Our utilities are under the streets, which are being dug up all the time as we know.
Have you ever been to Paris or Quito and watched repairs to their utilities? I have. Their utilities along the brick streets are under the sidewalk. They do not dig up their ancient brick streets. They open the sidewalk when they need to work on them.
Brick do not lend themselves to a seismically active area like California because they move around. This creates tripping problems similar to broken sidewalk. That is essentially what they are. Strollers and wheelchairs, canes, and physically challenged people need a smooth surface so you are asking for accidents. Perhaps that is why many of the bricks have been removed.
I guess there are some bricklayers who need work. San Francisco has spent millions on moving around on Market Street sidewalks. Question to ask is, who is making money on these projects and why is SF with a huge budget deficit wasting time on non-essential projects?
Permeable pavement is used for parking and driveways. Not in full-width permeable roadway application. Good on the neighbors to reject this nonsense.
What a bunch of money wasting busybodies dickering about with a Billion dollar deficit coming down on all our heads while they dither and debate this crap.
Permeable streets doesn’t need a 25M study, we need trash cans and cops and teachers and pensions paid. Get real people in charge.