St. George Street Rainway

The St. George Street Rainway (the Rainway) is Vancouver’s largest blue-green corridor, transforming a paved residential street into a multi-block green rainwater infrastructure (GRI) and sustainable transportation corridor. Initiated by community volunteers and advanced by the City of Vancouver, the Rainway integrates stormwater management, urban ecology, active transportation, and public realm benefits. By capturing and treating rainwater at the surface through a series of rain gardens, the Rainway reduces pressure on the sewer system, improves downstream water quality, supports urban biodiversity, and helps cool the neighbourhood during extreme heat.

Prior to urban development, the area surrounding St. George Street was part of a coastal western hemlock forest, where a small creek drained water from the local watershed into False Creek. With urban development of the 1900s expanding, historic streams, like the one on St. George Street were buried to make room for roadways and urban development. This transformation fundamentally altered local hydrology, ecology and the surrounding community’s connection to nature.

The Rainway Project was initially envisioned by a group of community volunteers, seeking to restore urban nature, daylight the lost creek, and create new opportunities for art, learning, and neighbourhood gathering. In 2010, the Rainway community group was formed and began advocacy work, community engagement and design charrettes to develop a vision of the Rainway in their local neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant. In 2013, City Council approved the Mount Pleasant Community Plan, which laid the foundation for the project and identified St. George Street as a GRI and active transportation corridor.

In 2019, City Council advanced the project by adding the St. George Rainway project to its capital funding project list, committing to delivering the first phase of the Rainway with an internal, multidisciplinary design team and internal construction crew. 

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Understanding and Assessing Impacts

The community proposed Rainway offered the City a strategic opportunity to address multiple infrastructure challenges in Mount Pleasant: mitigating localized flooding, increasing system capacity in an area experiencing ongoing residential growth, and improving water quality in the False Creek watershed. 

The corridor experienced localized flooding and development pressure associated with increased density in the neighbourhood. The existing sewer system is aging and operating near capacity, limiting its ability to accommodate additional rainwater flows. Without intervention, pipe upgrades would be needed in the near future to accommodate increased flows from continued development and climate change. The city estimated these sewer capacity upgrades to be approximately $16 million. 

Water quality impacts were also a critical concern, as the corridor drains to False Creek—one of Vancouver’s most heavily used recreational water bodies. Pollutant sediments found in urban rainwater runoff pose risks to downstream ecological health and public use. Green rainwater infrastructure is one of the only effective methods to capture, treat and remove this polluted sediment before reaching our water ways.

Like many other areas, St George Street also faces broader urban challenges, like ongoing biodiversity loss, uneven tree canopy coverage and a lack of green space. Dense neighborhoods with limited vegetation and extensive paved surfaces are particularly vulnerable to urban heat island effects, increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events. 

Together, these conditions underscored the need for a multi-benefit approach to manage rainwater at the surface, improve water quality, enhance active transportation networks, support ecological function and improve livability.

Use of climate information in decision-making

The design of the Rainway was informed by a suite of City of Vancouver policies and strategic plan that have embedded regional climate data, global climate science, and climate adaptation strategies into their objectives. Key policies included the Rain City Strategy, Road Space Reallocation Program, Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP), Transportation 2040, Urban Forestry Strategy and Biodiversity Strategy. Collectively these strategies and policies have shaped the way rainwater management and transportation projects have been designed and implemented across the City.

The Rain City Strategy represents a fundamental shift in how rainwater is managed in Vancouver. The strategy set the city-wide goal to capture and clean at least 90% of Vancouver’s average annual rainfall and a design target to manage 48 mm of rainfall per day. These targets were informed by an analysis of historical rainfall patterns, climate projections, policy benchmarking, and professional expertise. For the Rainway, these targets informed hydraulic modeling and system design, with infrastructure sized to meet or exceed the Rain City Strategy design targets, where possible. 

The City of Vancouver also has a long-standing policy framework that seeks to reallocate road space for low-emission transportation modes. More recently, Vancouver’s CEAP has set emissions targets to reduce the city’s carbon pollution by 50% by 2030. The Rainway was guided by CEAP and Vancouver’s Road Reallocation Program which aims to convert regular streets into public space, prioritizing walking, cycling, transit, and green infrastructure.

At the site scale, regional climate data and GIS mapping tools have informed site-specific design decisions. Climate Projections for Metro Vancouver (2016), which anticipates wetter winters and hotter, drier summers by mid-century, for example, informed the Rainway’s landscape strategies. Planting design prioritized drought-tolerant and climate-resilient species, while also supporting urban biodiversity. Urban forestry and heat vulnerability data, including LiDAR-based canopy analysis, GIS mapping, and aerial imagery, identified the St. George corridor as particularly susceptible to extreme heat, reinforcing the need for increased tree canopy, shade, and vegetated systems to mitigate urban heat island effects and improve long-term climate resilience.

Integrated bioretention system
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Image of a sustainable urban rainwater management project in the City of Vancouver. The schematic includes incorporation of greenscaping as a way of not only beautifying the streetscape, but also to provide functional purposes such as rainwater management and small areas of habitat refugia. The image shows the integration of sustainable design with climate adaptation actions. Specific foci are on the inclusion of more city street trees, native plants, areas for pollinators, rain gardens, and the creation of common spaces for gathering.

Identifying Actions

In 2020, the City of Vancouver initiated a two-year public engagement and planning process to advance the community’s Rainway vision. While the historic stream was buried too deeply underground to make daylighting technically feasible, the Rainway presented an opportunity to reimagine the street as a blue-green system that honors the historic waterway while addressing contemporary infrastructure and climate challenges. The City of Vancouver defines a blue-green system as a network of park-like streets that connect green spaces and co-locate habitat, rainwater management, pedestrian walkways, and cycling routes. This approach allowed the streets to serve as a surface expression of the lost creek while delivering drainage, mobility, ecological, and public-realm benefits.

Water Management Goals

The water management goals for the project were informed by the City of Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy, which prioritizes managing rainwater close to where it falls, and establishes a city-wide performance target to capture at least 90% of Vancouver’s average annual rainfall. Following the City of Vancouver’s GI design standards, the system was also designed to remove 80% of the total suspended solids (TSS), contributing to improved downstream water quality in False Creek.

Given existing sewer capacity constraints in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood and the water quality objectives in the downstream waterbody, False Creek, the design goal was to capture runoff and manage stormwater from St. George Street and from all the intersecting laneways within the four-block catchment area. The Rainway is intended to supplement but not replace the existing sewer system; rather, it will offset stormwater loads to accommodate densification and improve resilience to changing climate conditions, including more frequent and intense rainfall.  

Transportation Goals

The transportation goals for the project were informed by the City of Vancouver’s Transportation 2024 Plan and CEAP, which commit to reducing vehicle carbon emissions by making it easier for people to get around by walking, biking, using micromobility devices (such as scooters), or taking public transit. Guided by these plans, the project sought to expand active transportation options by creating a bikeway suitable for All Ages and Abilities (AAA) and upgrading road infrastructure to improve safety, comfort, and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists. These objectives also support Vancouver City Council’s direction to reallocate at least 11% of existing road space across the city to prioritize people, nature, and rainwater management over vehicle storage.

Environmental, Tree, and Biodiversity Goals

Supporting urban biodiversity played a central role in the project design. During the planning phase, the City’s design team focused on identifying actions that would advance City policies and recommendations to expand tree canopy cover and address biodiversity loss through increased vegetation cover and habitation creation at the street scale. Traditional ecological knowledge was also integrated into the design process, drawing on guidance developed with Indigenous consultants to inform species selection and planting strategies. To ensure that these goals were measurable the team aimed to identify baseline ecological conditions through a one-year Bioblitz and community science program to inform future monitoring. 

Community and Placemaking Goals

Given the Rainway’s rich history as a community-led advocacy and visioning initiative, community and placemaking goals were central in the early planning and design phases. Informed by values established in the previous community-led design work, the City sought to co-create the Rainway with the community and integrate public art and educational connections that honor the creek, while supporting placemaking, artistic expression, learning and informal play. 

To advance these goals, engagement was structured as an iterative, design-led process, with multiple phases of community engagement that extended beyond planning, into design, construction and long-term monitoring of the Rainway. To ensure community values were embedded into the project from the outset, the City established the St. George Rainway Advisory Committee, composed of residents, business owners, and community members. The Advisory Committee provided feedback on early planning and design work before they were refined and shared through various phases of public engagement. Broader public engagement included surveys, co-design workshops, open houses, youth engagement programs, a pop-up Rainway demonstration, and community science monitoring. Input gathered through these activities informed the development of three GRI design concepts and four transportation layout options, which were presented to the public for feedback and voting. 

Summary of Design Intentions

  • Treat and manage urban stormwater to improve water quality entering False Creek, reduce combined sewer overflows, and relieve pressure on the municipal sewer system
  • Reallocate road space to improve accessibility and make walking, rolling, and cycling safe, convenient, comfortable, and enjoyable for All Ages and Abilities (AAA)
  • Use green rainwater infrastructure to increase biodiversity and tree canopy, and cool the neighbourhood during summer heat
  • Co-design Rainway with community to create visible and educational connections that honour the historic creek while supporting placemaking, artistic expression, learning, and informal play
Co-design workshop graphic
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Image of a sustainable urban rainwater management project in the City of Vancouver. The schematic includes incorporation of greenscaping as a way of not only beautifying the streetscape, but also to provide functional purposes such as rainwater management and small areas of habitat refugia. The image shows the integration of sustainable design with climate adaptation actions. Specific foci are on the inclusion of more city street trees, native plants, areas for pollinators, rain gardens, and the creation of common spaces for gathering.
St. George Rainway concept design, April 2022
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Image of a sustainable urban rainwater management project in the City of Vancouver. The schematic includes incorporation of greenscaping as a way of not only beautifying the streetscape, but also to provide functional purposes such as rainwater management and small areas of habitat refugia. The image shows the integration of sustainable design with climate adaptation actions. Specific foci are on the inclusion of more city street trees, native plants, areas for pollinators, rain gardens, and the creation of common spaces for gathering.

Implementation

Construction of the Rainway began in early 2023 and proceeded block-by-block, with completion of the final block slated for summer 2026.  The coordination between GI and other departments served as testing ground for new approaches and materials, which helped set new standards for future green rainwater infrastructure projects.

Delivering the Rainway within the public right-of-way presented several construction challenges typical of working within a dense urban corridor. The street right-of-way contains extensive subsurface utilities, often at varying depths and alignments making their exact locations difficult to confirm until construction is underway. Additional constraints included limited right-of-way widths, the need to maintain access to homes and businesses and coordination with construction staging with nearby developments. The first block of construction also had a grade of approximately 12%, requiring specialized design details, construction techniques and expertise to safely deliver the work on a steep site. 

Detailed utility investigations and a dedicated on-site construction inspector were essential to navigating these constraints and ensuring alignment between design intent and construction realities. Actors involved in design and construction included, but not limited to, structural and geotechnical design consultants, City operations and construction crews, City engineering design branches, as well as City project managers, third party utilities, and planting and maintenance contractors.  The success of the Rainway relied on collaboration between these departments.

To align with the ecological goals, the project team sought to source and reuse recovered materials wherever possible. Reused materials include granite boulders reclaimed through City excavation works, logs sourced from fallen trees during storm events and recovered driftwood from the City’s beaches and repurposed granite curb blocks used as sediment pads within the rain garden. 

Construction process along St. George Street, November 2022
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Image of a sustainable urban rainwater management project in the City of Vancouver. The schematic includes incorporation of greenscaping as a way of not only beautifying the streetscape, but also to provide functional purposes such as rainwater management and small areas of habitat refugia. The image shows the integration of sustainable design with climate adaptation actions. Specific foci are on the inclusion of more city street trees, native plants, areas for pollinators, rain gardens, and the creation of common spaces for gathering.

Outcomes and Monitoring Progress

The final design reallocates 1,100 m2 of road space over four city blocks to nature-based rainwater infrastructure in the form of a connected series of rain gardens. It closes one and a half blocks to cars, creates more spaces for people and nature, and delivers three blocks of dedicated bike lanes suitable for All Ages and Abilities (AAA), helping to fill a key gap in Vancouver’s cycling network. The Rainway also adds 35 new trees, increasing shade and helping to cool the St. George corridor. The project allocates 3,000 m2 of planted area to rainwater infrastructure designed to treat approximately 17,500 m³ and infiltrate 5,000 m³ of rainwater annually. The system is designed to accommodate 90% of Vancouver’s rain events, with additional capacity to enhance resilience during atmospheric river events.

Guided by community goals for a naturalized planting approach, Indigenous insights from the ethnobotany report and existing biodiversity data collected from community science monitoring events, the planting design was formed on a strong ecological foundation. The design team sought to integrate a vision rooted in ecological function and community values in the planting strategy. This vision was translated through multi-layered, matrix-style planting, with self-seeding and spreading rhizome species planted to allow the Rainway to evolve naturally over time. As some species thrive and others recede, the planting will continue to shift. Plant species were planted together to share growing conditions and work together in the soil, where shallow roots can thrive with deeply rooting perennials without competing for space, nutrients and water. The goal is a self-sustaining system allowing the landscape to function with reduced long-term maintenance and increased ecological resilience. Logs, boulders, and decomposing wood were incorporated to create microhabitats for insects, pollinators, and small urban wildlife. To balance efficient rainwater infiltration with long-term ecological function, engineered soils were biologically amended through microbial testing and targeted inoculation, supporting engineering performance and maintaining soil nutrient health. 

During community consultation place making and honoring the creek emerged as a central theme. In response to the community’s vision, the design team embedded placemaking and public realm elements throughout the Rainway, which reference the site’s historical ecology. Along the steepest block, the grade challenge was transformed into an opportunity to animate water through a series of weirs, creating an ephemeral water feature that highlighted the historic importance of water along St. George Street. Public art installations were also developed to echo the community’s vision of honoring the site’s ecological heritage. Collaboration with the City’s engineering artist-in-residence, Holly Schmidt, led to the inclusion of a nurse log installation at the end of the Rainway. Representing Vancouver’s coastal western hemlock forests, the installation is designed to decompose over time, symbolizing regeneration. Additional art interventions, such as, custom wood seating inspired by turkey tail mushrooms, sandblasted patterns on plaza spaces, feature walls with inset patterns of coastal plants and interpretive signage, communicate the story of Vancouver’s lost creeks and ecological heritage.

The monitoring program includes infiltration and absorption rate testing, post-construction biodiversity studies using indicator species, and long-term community science stewardship. Early performance observations during major storm events indicate the Rainway is performing beyond its design standard, effectively absorbing heavy rainwater from atmospheric rivers through its soil and plants. Longer-term evaluations will continue to monitor the Rainway’s water management performance during rain events and track tree canopy establishment, biodiversity changes and urban heating monitoring, recognizing that these benefits will increase over time as systems mature.

The Rainway also demonstrates the value of early community education and engagement as integrating climate resilience into urban design often requires reframing public ideas on traditional aesthetics and public perceptions of how urban nature looks. Outreach efforts were critical to shift public perception and establish an appreciation for “wild,” ecologically functional and healthy urban landscapes.  

Highlights of the landscape architect

The planning and design of St. George Rainway was a collaborative process led by a multi-disciplinary team of designers within the City of Vancouver’s Engineering Department, including transportation engineers, green infrastructure engineers, landscape architects and planners. Landscape architects within the City of Vancouver played a central role in leading the Rainway design from concept through implementation. The project demonstrates the value of embedding landscape architects within engineering departments rather than working in disciplinary silos. Within this collaborative structure, engineers led the design of the system sizing, hydrological performance and the sub-surface pipe network, while the landscape architects led the design of the Rainway’s form, public realm and planting palette. Working together, the integrated team translated hydrologic and ecological requirements into a functional and engaging public realm.

From the earliest stages in the project, the landscape architects advocated for an ecological systems thinking approach to ensure that the design addresses hydrological and ecological needs, while also responding to the needs of the community. Landscape architects directly influenced the spatial organization and the performance of the GRI, embedding sustainability and resilience in the project from the beginning. The Rainway exemplifies the profession’s ability to deliver on multi-benefit infrastructure systems. Positioned at the intersection of engineering, ecology and public space design, landscape architects translated complex technical requirements into a blue-green system that serves as essential drainage infrastructure while supporting urban ecology, climate reliance and community use.

One year of growth
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Image of a sustainable urban rainwater management project in the City of Vancouver. The schematic includes incorporation of greenscaping as a way of not only beautifying the streetscape, but also to provide functional purposes such as rainwater management and small areas of habitat refugia. The image shows the integration of sustainable design with climate adaptation actions. Specific foci are on the inclusion of more city street trees, native plants, areas for pollinators, rain gardens, and the creation of common spaces for gathering.

Next Steps

The Rainway is part of a replicable model that will be used to inform future city-wide GRI initiatives and is not intended to be a one-off project. The Green Infrastructure team at the City is currently exploring opportunities to integrate the project with other city programs (e.g., the Seeding Stewardship Program) to increase volunteer stewardship (e.g., through outdoor street mural, community science monitoring, and other neighbourhood initiatives), and is currently evaluating ways to extend the Rainway along St. George Street to Kingsway Avenue, tracing the original creek headwaters. This work will begin in the City’s next capital plan and is scheduled to be completed over two additional phases. These final phases of the St. George Rainway will reinforce St. George Street as a major active transportation corridor that is connected with the greater urban network and delivers critical rainwater management and drainage functions to the area.

Resources

 

This case study was authored by City of Vancouver staff, in collaboration with Sabrina Careri (Design Communications) on behalf of the CSLA. It forms part of the landADAPT Case Study Series, an educational resource and advocacy tool developed by the CSLA with the support of Natural Resources Canada’s Climate Change Adaptation Program.