Green stormwater infrastructure, complete streets, and interagency collaboration in San Francisco

Abstract

In many US cities, the implementation of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) in the right-of-way remains problematic. On one hand, many cities' policies are espousing the Complete Streets model, an approach whereby streets should serve multiple users and purposes and combine different design elements, including GSI facilities; on the other hand, the collaboration between city agencies that would be required to implement Complete Streets project conflicts with the compartmentalized structure of city governments. This thesis analyzes the San Francisco experience with GSI, investigating citywide policies and actual street improvements that the city was able to deliver over the years. This investigation shows that although the city embraced the Complete Streets model and adopted policies that in theory encourage collaborative projects, it also did not create an implementation mechanism to support collaboration, which currently remains at the discretion of city agencies. The thesis also shows that, from a San Francisco agency standpoint, collaboration in a street project can be perceived as a hamper, rather than as an opportunity. In particular, in the case of GSI, this resulted in one agency choosing to work independently in order to implement its projects, which as a result didn't always score well in terms of completeness. This led to a paradoxical situation, by which as GSI-based street improvements were implemented over the years, agency acceptance toward GSI increased whereas agency collaboration decreased. Ascribing issues with collaboration to the compartmentalized structure of the city government, the thesis concludes with recommendations both for the San Francisco agencies wishing to engage in collaborative projects, and for the agency in charge of GSI as it moves toward a new batch of GSI projects in the right-of-way.