Street gutter

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title: "Street gutter" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["road-infrastructure"] description: "Depression that runs parallel to a road and is designed to collect rainwater" topic_path: "general/road-infrastructure" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_gutter" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Depression that runs parallel to a road and is designed to collect rainwater ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Town_of_Onondaga.jpg" caption="Shallow gutter typical of late 20th century North American low density suburbs"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Street_gutter_(caño)_and_gutter_bridge_in_Moravia,Costa_Rica-_07.jpg" caption="Street gutter, with pedestrian gutter bridge for crossing, in Costa Rica"] ::

A street gutter is a depression that runs parallel to a road and is designed to collect rainwater that flows along the street diverting it into a storm drain. A gutter alleviates water buildup on a street, allows pedestrians to pass without walking through puddles, and reduces the risk of hydroplaning by road vehicles. When a curbstone is present, a gutter may be formed by the convergence of the road surface and the vertical face of the sidewalk; otherwise, a dedicated gutter surface made of concrete may be present. Depending on local regulations, a gutter usually discharges, as a nonpoint pollution source in a storm drain whose final discharge falls into a detention pond (in order to remove some pollutants by sedimentation) or into a body of water. Street gutters are most often found in areas of a city which have high pedestrian traffic. In rural areas, gutters are seldom used and are frequently replaced by a borrow ditch.

When urban streets do not have sanitary sewers, street gutters are made deep enough to serve that purpose as well; responsibility for operation and maintenance of the dual-purpose street gutter was cooperatively shared between the local government and the inhabitants.

A now obsolete word meaning a street gutter is a kennel.

References

References

1. (May 2005). "Stormwater Quality Documentation of Roadside Shoulders Borrow Ditches". Center for Research in Water Resources, The University of Texas at Austin.
2. Jørgensen, Dolly. (2008-08-13). "Cooperative Sanitation: Managing Streets and Gutters in Late Medieval England and Scandinavia". Technology and Culture.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::