New York Needs Permeable Streets to Mitigate Future Flooding

As climate change all but assures more catastrophic flooding in New York City, "experts say the city and the MTA can at least work on mitigating the worst of the floods by going green. Literally." To protect the city's subways and mitigate future floods, writes Dave Colon, "it’s incumbent on the city to create streets and sidewalks that can actually absorb water."

New York's subway system, according to the MTA, "can only handle rainfall of 1.75 inches per hour — an amount that used to be considered extremely rare, but isn’t anymore." In a 2018 lawsuit against Big Oil, the de Blasio administration acknowledged the increased risk by pointing out that "the number of days in New York City with rainfall at or above two inches is projected to increase by as much as 67% by the 2020s and the number of days with rainfall at or above four inches is projected to increase by as much as 67% by the 2020s and 133% by the 2080s."

Colon argues that "[s]treet design is a necessary, but neglected, weapon against flooding" that the city should implement more aggressively. And while experts praise the city's stormwater resiliency guide, Marcel Negret of the Regional Plan Association says the document takes "a siloed view of the transit system that the city relies on without owning," putting responsibility for flood prevention on the MTA without addressing street-level solutions like "street trees, bioswales and planters that manage excess stormwater."