Star: City hopes to plant 7 million trees

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City hopes to plant 7 million trees



Jun 06, 2007 01:48 PM
Jim Byers
city hall bureau chief

The city of Toronto hopes to plant another seven million trees over the next four decades to help battle climate change and improve air quality, a city council committee has been told.

Council's parks and the environment committee today endorsed the idea of spending $350,000 for the first-ever, comprehensive study of the city's existing stock of trees as part of the city's stated goal of doubling Toronto's tree canopy.

The city has estimated that 17.5 per cent of Toronto is covered by trees, but council has previously endorsed a call to reach a 30 to 40 per cent coverage rate.

That will be a costly endeavour, although nobody knows exactly how much money would be required.

Doubling the tree canopy also will require extensive work with private landowners to try to encourage planting of more trees. About four million of the city's existing seven million trees are located on private property, according to city staff.

If approved by council, the staff study will look at everything from potential planting areas to tree health, soil conditions and problems with pests and storms.

City staff said Calgary has only 7.2 per cent tree coverage but that 36.7 per cent of the city of Atlanta is covered by trees.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

They should have an "adopt-a-tree" program where anyone who signed up would keep their eyes on the trees/plantings assigned.

As to the comparison with Atlanta...well, I certainly hope they are not using it as an example for progressiveness in the green front just because it is physically green.

AoD

 

[Hydrogen]

One can only hope that they mean "trees" (big and leafy) and not those little sticks that die after ten hot days with no water.

Also, with respect to Atlanta, do they mean the city proper, or Greater Atlanta area?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Due to all the cul-de-sacs separated by strips of forest for Atlanta, I'd guess metro area but I'm not sure and it could easily be just the central cities...New York has a 20.9% urban tree coverage rate, for what that's worth (http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=49&Type=2 , page 3). Calgary has lots of parkland and green spaces but much of this isn't actually covered by trees. Shrubs, grass, and other plants do help the environment, though, so it's not like trees are the only worthy land cover.

 

[EnviroTO]

Without placing an island in the middle of streets with trees I wonder where they expect to get all the space to put these trees? What percentage of the city land is already covered with buildings? I would think the greater the amount of space occupied by buildings, the tougher it would be to increase tree canopy barring tree filled green rooftops.

 

[ShonTron]

Due to all the cul-de-sacs separated by strips of forest for Atlanta, I'd guess metro area but I'm not sure and it could easily be just the central cities...New York has a 20.9% urban tree coverage rate, for what that's worth (http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=49&Type=2 , page 3). Calgary has lots of parkland and green spaces but much of this isn't actually covered by trees. Shrubs, grass, and other plants do help the environment, though, so it's not like trees are the only worthy land cover.

I flew into and out of Atlanta a month and a bit ago, so I saw all the cul-de-sacs separated by forests that surround the city, but also Atlanta itself (at least what I could see from the partially-elevated MARTA North-South line and from the air) that Atlanta itself is actually fairly well treed. Also while Atlanta looked a bit dumpy surrounding the downtown, it did not appear to have blight anywhere near the Cleveland East Side, St. Louis North Side or Detroit.

 

[indense]

Is there a reason why the city couldn't turn downsview into a giant tree farm? Plant thousands of new saplings each year and relocate some from previous years throughout the city either replacing dead trees or increasing the number of trees. I don't really think downsview park is ever going to become the park we were promised but I figure that if you plant x new saplings each year but relocate x-y trees, eventually downsview will be fully treed.

 

[Tewder]

Without placing an island in the middle of streets with trees I wonder where they expect to get all the space to put these trees? What percentage of the city land is already covered with buildings? I would think the greater the amount of space occupied by buildings, the tougher it would be to increase tree canopy barring tree filled green rooftops.

I like that idea Enviro! Some of Toronto's wider thoroughfares - Spadina, Bay, Jarvis, among others - would be great with treed boulevards running up the centre. It looks nice on Yonge near College, and on Front near Union Station. They do this a lot in French cities too.

 

[Jdot]

If they are going to plant all these new trees, they have to STOP putting those cement slabs at their base. Sealing off the ground from water IS NOT A WISE IDEA if you want the trees to grow nice and big.

 

[TrickyRicky]

People who usually use the lawns adjacent to Bloor street in Christie Pits park for casual sports like frisby, soccer etc. had a surprise last week when their usual spaces were plugged up by new saplings.

 

[Skeezix]

I like that idea Enviro! Some of Toronto's wider thoroughfares - Spadina, Bay, Jarvis, among others - would be great with treed boulevards running up the centre. It looks nice on Yonge near College, and on Front near Union Station. They do this a lot in French cities too.

Kyle Rae has been securing Section 37 monies for a few years now to provide a treed median along Jarvis, although there will be some Councillors (hopefully a minority) who will ultimately vote against the project if it means loss of a traffic lane.

 

[Skeezix]

Without placing an island in the middle of streets with trees I wonder where they expect to get all the space to put these trees? What percentage of the city land is already covered with buildings? I would think the greater the amount of space occupied by buildings, the tougher it would be to increase tree canopy barring tree filled green rooftops.

There is a lot of tree planting potential on the private front and rear yards of houses across the City.

The City will plant a free tree in front of your house, within the City boulevard, and LEAF will plant a heavily subsidized tree in your back yard. Nonetheless, a lot of homeowners are resistant to "free trees" because they associate trees with more yard work, don't want to shade their manicured lawns, or they (incorrectly) believe that tree roots damage water pipes. Or, they simply don't know about these programs (probably the biggest problem), or they are just too lazy. And the City has determined (probably correctly) that they can't simply start planting trees in the City boulevards in front of people's homes, because the trees are unlikely to survive if the homeowners don't want them.

In other words, the City needs more incentives/more promotion to convince more homeowners to plant trees on their lawns. Street trees along residential streets have been shown to increase property values and they even reduce air conditioning costs during the summer.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

There's opportunities to plant trees pretty much anywhere. A significant percentage of Toronto's parkland is 'green' but not treed, so increasing the tree cover figure is as 'simple' as turning an acre of grass and shrubs into a forest...I really doubt they're talking about many trees in the medians of arterial roads.

I flew into and out of Atlanta a month and a bit ago, so I saw all the cul-de-sacs separated by forests that surround the city, but also Atlanta itself (at least what I could see from the partially-elevated MARTA North-South line and from the air) that Atlanta itself is actually fairly well treed. Also while Atlanta looked a bit dumpy surrounding the downtown, it did not appear to have blight anywhere near the Cleveland East Side, St. Louis North Side or Detroit.

The cul de sacs & forest combo does start very quickly outside of downtown, which is why I'm not sure they're talking about metro areas...it could very well be central cities alone. edit - especially since the 7% figure seems right for the city of Calgary. Buckhead and other established Atlanta areas have massive tree cover on their big old lots, but Calgary's suburbs' trees still need to grow up, so to speak.

 

[Hipster Duck]

If climate change and clean air is the raison d'etre behind all this tree planting, would it be more effective for the city to buy Amazon rainforest land instead?

 

[interchange42]

I'd like to see trees planted wherever possible around interchanges. The grassed areas between ramps seem to go on forever in many cases, and while I know that trees can't be planted right up against roadways because of both salt and safety concerns, I'll bet that once environmental factors (such as water table) are taken into consideration, there would likely be a fair bit of space in many interchanges where more trees could be growing.

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