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On trees as solution to many of our urban problems
I am sharing this nice article on trees being the solution to many of our urban problems. I think many people have come to notice the importance of trees and the role they play with the increasing temperatures (i.e., heat) we’ve experienced the past years. The science on this state much more and covers not just temperatures but flooding, energy and infrastructure as well. Discussions and examples on these are in the article:
Durand-Wood, E. (August 8, 2024) “The Multi-Tasking Marvel: How Street Trees Can Solve Many Municipal Problems,” Strong Towns, https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/8/8/the-multitasking-marvel-how-street-trees-can-solve-many-municipal-problems [Last accessed: 8/28/2024]
To quote from the article:
“Planting and maintaining street trees is an investment, but it’s one that pays for itself over and over again. Cities around the world are starting to calculate the economic value of their urban forests, a task made feasible with tools like i-Tree.
And more research is finding that trees pay for themselves many times over. A U.S. Forest Service study “conducted in five U.S. cities found that every dollar invested in the management of urban trees [ …] yields annual benefits of $1.37 to $3.09.
Trees are also the perfect example of a small bet. They cost relatively little, but the many varied returns are so high.”
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Article share: The Benefits of Trees
Here is a quick sharing of this article on the benefits of trees. I thought such articles are always timely and relevant especially if you frame this in the context of road or highway development as well as the complete streets concept that is currently being promoted to improve transport conditions including road safety.
Source: The Benefits of Trees
Article share: on making roads greener
I came upon this article on ‘greening’ roads:
Goldfarb, G. (December 23, 2023) “This Radical Plan to Make Roads Greener Actually Works,” Wired, https://www.wired.com/story/this-radical-plan-to-make-roads-greener-actually-works/?bxid=5bd6761b3f92a41245dde413&cndid=37243643&esrc=AUTO_OTHER&source=Email_0_EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_DAILY_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_content=WIR_Daily_010324&utm_mailing=WIR_Daily_010324&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=P8 [Last accessed: 1/4/2024]
To quote from the article:
“The very notion that a road can be “green” seems oxymoronic: A vast body of scientific literature demonstrates that roads befoul air and water, fragment ecosystems, introduce non-native species, and obliterate wildlife.”
That was a pretty damning or severe statement about roads considering such infrastructure are necessities in today’s world. Perhaps we should revisit road planning and design to address these issues referred to. Aside from that quote, the article related a number of good examples worth replicating. In fact, I recall that many Philippine roads were envisioned, even designed, to have greenery along them. The tragedy is when the DPWH and LGUs departed or deviated from these plans. The road widening projects of the past years are examples on how national and local agencies have proven the article’s author right about green roads being oxymoronic.
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Cool Walkability Planning
I am sharing this article about planning and design for more walkable streets. The term ‘cool’ in the article refers to temperatures as people are less likely to walk if it is too hot to do so.
From the article:
“Improving walkability (including variants such as wheelchairs, hand carts, low-speed scooters) can provide significant benefits to people, businesses and communities, particularly in dense urban areas where land values are high and vehicle travel is costly. However, walking can be uncomfortable and unhealthy in hot climate cities, particularly those that often experience extreme temperatures (over 40° Celsius, 105° Fahrenheit). These conditions make walking unattractive and infeasible during many days…
A well-planned networks of shadeways (shaded sidewalks) and pedways (enclosed, climate-controlled walkways) incorporated into a compact urban village can provide convenient, comfortable and efficient non-auto access during extreme heat. They can create multimodal communities where residents, workers and visitors rely more on walking and public transit, reduce vehicle use, save on vehicle costs, and require less expensive road and parking infrastructure…
The main obstacle to comprehensive pedway development is the well-entrenched biases that favor motorized travel and undervalue non-motorized modes in transportation planning and investment. Transportation agencies have tools for planning and evaluating roadway improvements, and funding to implement them, but lack comparable tools and funding for walkability improvements such as shadeways and pedways, even if they are more cost effective and beneficial than roadway projects.”
Source: Cool Walkability Planning
On the importance of trees along streets
I’ve written before about the importance of having parks around a city or town. Here’s an article I recently read about the positive impacts of trees along streets:
Stimpson, A. (March 12, 2021) “Green health: a tree-filled street can positively influence depression, study finds,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/12/baltimore-study-trees-mental-health-study [Last accessed: 3/29/2021]
Tree-lined street somewhere in Antipolo City, Rizal
We often refer to cities as the urban jungle. Why not really, literally make cities as urban jungles by planting more trees and other plants where its possible to grow and nurture them. Gardens may be grown not just for flowers or aesthetics but for food. Perhaps architecture should deliberately be oriented for greens? Orchard Road in Singapore is much admired for its trees. Surely, similar streets in our country can be landscaped accordingly.
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Sparing the trees
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) embarked on a major road widening project in the last administration. This continues today. One of the issues raised then was the cutting down of many trees along the roadside to give way to one additional lane along each direction of national roads. While conservationists and environmentalists were not successful in provinces like Tarlac where old camachile trees were cut down, the case in Pangasinan seems a bit more positive. Traffic along rural highways such as the Urdaneta-Calasiao-Dagupan Road can become heavy but not so much so that it requires two additional lanes to the original two. As such, while the shoulders can be paved as part of the lane widening program of the DPWH, the trees can actually be spared. I think the DPWH and the LGUs would just need to mark the trees to make them very visible at night time or when visibility is low along the highway.
Big old trees, mostly mango trees line up the Urdaneta-Calasiao-Dagupan Highway along the newly paved lane that used to be a shoulder of this highway. These huge trees are fruit bearing and so one can imagine that part of the loss if these were to be cut down were the tons of mangoes that many people could benefit from.
Sections of the additional lanes are generally not usable for general traffic and revert to their previous use as parking spaces. These paved sections now also are useful as ‘solar driers’. Shown in the photo above is an example where grains of rice (palay) are laid out direct on the concrete pavement for natural drying under the sun. People (staff of the owners) guard these against animals, wayward motorists and possibly thieves. These staff will gather the grains when there is impending rains or when the day’s almost over to dry another day.
I wanted to take more photos of the highway but was seated at the back of our van so I had to settle for a few select shots. The second photo above is care of a colleague who sat in front and took a few shots himself.
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Caught (up) in traffic 