Ever walk through an old, mature neighbourhood? Usually there are tons of people on the sidewalks, and a primary reason is that there are mature trees providing plenty of shade.
Then try walking in a new neighbourhood with barely any shade. It is awful.
Neighborhoods you’d typically want to walk in do have shade because they were all built a long time ago and there is somewhere for you to walk to. Suburban neighborhoods aren’t designed that way which is why even if there was shade there’s still nowhere to walk to.
I do agree we need more trees planted and more shade. Unfortunately a lot of space near and around places people would want to walk or bike to us instead covered in pavement for cars and parking.
We can do more than one thing at once though. We can make areas more walkable while we also plant trees. And we can flip state highway departments [1] so that they focus on serving the people and their needs instead of themselves or a small, vocal minority.
[1] Note that departments of transportation in nearly all states are highway and road transit departments first and do next to nothing w.r.t better means of transportation. Their entire context is cars and drivers and you can confirm this by looking at the budget.
I agree with what you are saying generally but my point stands even for urban cores, which tend to have little to no trees (or many trees but not mature enough for any real shade) and tons of concrete. Awful walking experience despite lots of things to do and see.
Three sticking points in my experience trying to help manage street trees in a neighborhood of 400 homes:
1. Planter strips are too small. This leads to infrastructure conflicts that are costly like lifting sidewalks and exploding irrigation lines. The problem is many municipalities simply have standard streets too wide and planters too narrow.
2. Maintaining trees is an ongoing expense and if not managed by an HOA or municipality the costs explode as individuals have to pay a crew to drag out equipment for just a few trees.
3. Lack of mandatory diversity- my neighborhood is 60% ash because the builder got a good deal 15 years ago after the emerald ash borer was found out east and wasn’t top of mind in the west yet. If the EAB makes a strong foothold entire blocks will be starting from zero again.
Like the blog post and other commenters mentioned, it's not just trees alone but especially in hotter climates it can make all the difference.
Animals understand this stuff just fine, yet certain modern humans somehow have trouble with the concept.
When you step into the walkway you immediately feel the cool and moisture. It feels magical.
It's like homes used to be so much closer to the sidewalk, it was just a couple of steps to reach the sidewalk and get going, but now it's these giant football field widths separating homes from the sidewalk, and then massive 4 lane sized roads separating sidewalks on either side. I'm exaggerating of course but the point is still there, the scale is just so different planting trees won't solve it.
This difference in scale creates such a different atmosphere, where sidewalks are just for dog walkers and bored baby sitters, not for regular commute. It's like if you want to talk to your neighbour from the sidewalk you have to bring a megaphone.
I do. I lived 25+ years in Atlanta and I walked all over downtown, midtown, Buckhead, Little 5, Westside, etc. and a lack of trees means you BAKE walking more than a block.
There are lots of really nice, shaded neighborhoods in Atlanta. But anywhere there's a business that you'd walk to, you BAKE.
"A drink driver might swerve off the road" killed so many old growth trees in the US.
I would rather the drunk driver hit the tree and deal with his/her consequences, than hit my house or my neighbors during our sleep.
Yes if I live near a road I want trees/big fence/whatever so drunks don't take out my house. Yet if everyone does that, the number of traffic fatalities increases.
Of course it's a much harder stat to deliver who died and why versus just optimizing a single fatality count.
This problem ruins a lot of really nice things.
Not much of a realistic fix, is it?
Driving isn't intrinsic. Transportation is important but has multiple solutions.
Mass transit will NOT reduce auto transit: any driver who chooses to take mass transit will be replaced by a new driver on the road.
Civilized countries already solved this problem.
So if you're just building out transit while keeping road capacity the same (less common with dedicated bus lanes or light rail, because space for those is often created by converting former car lanes, but with "other off-grade transit" modes you need to make a conscious effort of reducing road capacity if reduced car usage is your goal), it's entirely possible that public transport use increases, while passenger miles travelled by car remain the roughly same long-term.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191023075139.h...
Unless they were distracted by a phone, the radio, a passenger, putting on make-up, etc.
Or fatigued.
It isn't that accidents are impossible but the impact speed if you were doing 30 mph is livable. If you were drunk doing 60 mph it wouldn't be.
Historically we measured efficacy by measuring fatalities. If you treat all deaths as equal your minimizing function will be narrow viewed.
1. Save drunk drivers but kill trees
2. Save drunk drivers but kill innocents
3. Let the drunk driver die before they kill anything/anyone else
I will always pick 3. I don't understand where the sympathy for this reckless behaviour comes from
But without trees they might run into someone walking or on their porch/front yard.
No shot those reasons would justify millions in tree removal fees.
However the huge budgets for roads could do it trivially.
You underestimate the impact of measuring fatalities as the only way of verifying success of transportation policy...
Certainly if other benefits were weighed properly it might not happen but if you ignore the upsides... (certainly we historically ignored shade for pedestrians).
In the wider area, this part Winter had multiple trees fall. Not tree limbs, entire trees. One came down in front of a minivan carrying a local bus driver & his supervisor. I've got pictures.
I'm a pedestrian: I own neither a car nor a bike. But I understand why some trees are removed. I don't think the trees here are not watered deeply enough, so they don't have a deep hold on the ground.
I mean that we removed healthy trees in the name of safety.
Certainly verifying the health of trees and removing those that aren't healthy is a good thing.
My point is removing all trees within X distance on a non-highway was common practice.
Certainly clearing for highways is good as well.
Could have easily hit a person, a traffic pole, another car on sideways.
I don’t understand the argument why trees are at fault here.
Trees are the ultimate carbon capture, they produce oxygen and humidity, they provide shade, something beautiful to look at. They bring in birds and tree dwelling animals like squirrels.
Trees are a magical invention by nature.
That’s why we feel amazing walking in a neighborhood with trees.
Love how south-centric this statement is. In Northern countries, that's true for a month typically, otherwise "oh god please I hope the sun will shine on me".
In December, I see 4 hours of sun, where the light gets above tree tops. And that's in Southern Canada!
Not a hatred of trees, but a dislike of shade trees.
edit: until I visited Texas, I never understood why people wore hats. The sun is never hot enough here for it. It never gets as high in the sky. Yet it's a brutal beast in Texas. I can only imagine further south..
I don't think Barcelona or Tokyo are gonna win any awards for having lots of trees.
Just like snow can be an impediment for biking, and yet Oulu Finland has way more biking than US cities with much milder climates.
As far as I can tell there's probably also more walking going on on the dark side of the moon on average than in typical US cities so I'm not sure that's a great argument either.
Trees provide both natural shade and natural greenery. Both are well established as creating more pleasant environments for people.
Barcelona is a wonderful city and it's very walkable but it would be much more pleasant to walk around it between late morning and mid-afternoon for half of the year if the main pedestrian areas and connecting corridors had better coverage. I don't understand how this claim is controversial.
If you want to encourage people to walk more in places that have a firmly entrenched prejudice against it and a similarly passionate obsession with motor vehicles then you are going to need all the advantages you can get. Trees are a win in multiple ways and if properly planned they cost very little in either installation or maintenance compared to the value they bring. Again I don't understand how this claim is controversial.
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/rwd/provide-safe-recovery/cl...
What you say makes sense, when I walk in my own (new-ish development) neighborhood in Orange county, I specifically go to the areas where trees are more developed and provide more shade.