The short answer is yes: you can request a specific wood grain pattern for the wood on urban benches, but it is not like picking a paint color. You are really specifying a wood species, a sawing method, a grade, and a finish. When those are aligned, the grain pattern becomes much more predictable.
Most people who ask this are looking for either a clean, straight, architectural look or a richer, more natural cathedral grain. In wood terms, those usually mean quarter-sawn or rift-sawn boards for straight vertical grain, and flat-sawn boards for the arched cathedral figure. For urban benches, the straight and uniform look is the most common request because it reads as tidy in public spaces and tends to be more dimensionally stable outdoors. When selecting outdoor bench wood, durability is just as important as appearance.
If you want that straight grain, ask for quarter-sawn wood or rift-sawn wood. Quarter-sawn white oak is a classic choice because it has tight lines and, in oak, a subtle ray fleck. Rift-sawn white oak goes a step further and gives you an even more uniform vertical grain without the fleck. Teak, thermally modified ash, and black locust can also be sawn this way, but availability varies. Ipe and other very dense tropical hardwoods are extremely durable outdoors, yet their grain can be irregular, so a guaranteed straight pattern is harder to promise.
There are a few practical limits. Wood is a natural material, so you cannot demand that every bench slat have the exact same grain lines. What you can do is specify a cut and grade that produce a consistent range: for example, vertical grain, architectural grade, free of knots, with no flat-sawn boards mixed in. You should also ask the fabricator to provide a physical approval sample before production. That sample will show you the real color, grain spacing, and finish, which is far more useful than a brochure photo.
Cost and lead time change with the request. Quarter-sawn and rift-sawn milling produces more waste than flat-sawn, so expect a higher price per board foot and possibly a longer wait. For a small run of custom urban benches, that is usually manageable. For a large streetscape project with hundreds of benches, specifying a tight grain pattern across every slat can become expensive and logistically difficult. In that case, a better approach is to select a durable species, set a clear grade, and ask the supplier to sort for straighter, cleaner boards without guaranteeing absolute uniformity.
Grain is not only about appearance. Vertical grain boards from quarter-sawn or rift-sawn stock tend to shrink and swell less across their width, which means fewer problems with warping, cupping, splintering, and joint stress. That is a real benefit for public seating that sits outside through wet and dry seasons. A properly specified urban bench wood grain can make the benches look better and last longer.
So yes, request the grain pattern. Just frame the request the way a fabricator understands: name the species, specify the cut, set the grade, and ask for a sample. That gives you the best chance of getting urban benches with the exact character you want without setting an unrealistic expectation that every board will look identical.