From Turfgrass to Green Infrastructure: How cities like Boston are rethinking roadsides
From Turfgrass to Green Infrastructure:
How cities like Boston are rethinking roadsides
By: Sabrina Careri
From Turfgrass to Green Infrastructure:
How cities like Boston are rethinking roadsides
Boston is transforming traditional roadside turfgrass into bioswales and rain gardens to manage stormwater, reduce flooding, and support urban biodiversity. This shift makes green infrastructure a new standard in city planning, reflecting a broader commitment to climate resilience and ecological design.
Across North American cities, turfgrass curbsides strips (also known in the Canadian context as the city right-of-ways) have long been a standard of typical street design. However, more and more, municipalities are shifting away from this, in a growing recognition that turfgrass offers little ecological value and does nearly nothing to help manage stormwater. In response, many municipalities are choosing to advance more naturalized, rewilded approaches to urban landscaping, in hopes of supporting biodiversity and advancing climate resilience. Boston is a recent example of this, embracing these more ecologically-supportive approaches, by replacing conventional roadside grass with bioswales in an effort to transform how stormwater is managed in the face of the growing impacts of climate change.
Why the Change?
Traditional turfgrass lawns are a desert for biodiversity, providing virtually no habitat for urban ecology, at a time where habitat destruction is cited as the primary cause of global biodiversity decline. Alternative landscape practices (e.g., naturalized lawns, pollinator patches, habitat gardens, rain gardens, rewilded meadows, and xeriscaping, etc.) represent tangible solutions to reversing the downward trend.
Not to mention, traditional turfgrass lawns also often require more intensive management, making them more costly, all the while also requiring increased water use, fertilizers, and mowing, directly impacting greenhouse gas emissions as well as urban contamination levels. On the other hand, bioswales present a nature-based solution to filter pollutants as water is naturally absorbed into the ground, taking pressure off local sewer systems and supporting biodiversity by providing habitat for small urban plant, insect, and animal species alike.
A Shift in Standard Street Design
Boston is taking this commitment further by making it policy. According to Kate England (as cited in the CBC News article), former director of Boston’s Office of Green Infrastructure (OGI), all major street reconstruction projects are now required to include green infrastructure. This represents a significant step in climate action, as it establishes bioswales and rain gardens as the new standard in urban infrastructure. In Boston, this push for bioswales extends beyond roadways. In the media release, England further recognized small parcels of city-owned underutilized spaces (about 88 hectares worth), in addition to roads and parks, as an opportunity to expand the city’s green infrastructure footprint. To explore more Boston’s green infrastructure in action, check out the city’s interactive StoryMap – a digital tool showcasing rain gardens, bioswales, and other climate-resilient projects across the city: Boston Green Infrastructure StoryMap.
Creating Connected (re)Wild Green Spaces
Boston’s replacement of traditional turfgrass with bioswales reflects a broader shift in how we think about urban landscapes not just on public streets, but also in private yards. In fact, yards make up a large percentage of green space in the urban matrix. Just as cities are rewilding roadside spaces and parks to manage stormwater and support biodiversity, a growing number of community members are turning away from manicured lawns in favor of naturalized yards filled with native plants, wildflowers, and pollinator habitats. In doing so, they’re helping extend the work of public green infrastructure, creating a network of connected, climate-resilient landscapes across the city.
Boston’s transformation of its roadsides into biodiverse, functional spaces paves the way for a future of landscaping that is functional and full of life. And that future starts not only on the city streets, but also right at home in our own yards, on our balconies, and in our gardens.
To learn more about how to naturalize your yard, visit our Gardening for Biodiversity booklets – developed in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Ecological Design Lab, Nature Canada, and FLAP Canada.
