Shaw Street in Petersham is a good example of a good green street that has a lot of traffic. It’s not a wide street, yet tall reasonably closely spaced street trees have been planted.
We know that vehicle-related pollution & particulate matter is a public health issue as these can cause respiratory & heart illnesses/diseases & increased incidences of death.
In 2010, research from 700 worldwide health-pollution studies found that traffic pollution within a 500-metre radius of a major thoroughfare was likely to –
- Exacerbate asthma in children
- Trigger new asthma cases across all ages
- Impair lung function in adults &
- Could cause cardiovascular illness & death. See – http://bit.ly/QpiYx6
We also know that street trees help improve air-quality by removing some of the vehicle-related pollution & particulate matter from the air.
Thanks to research published in June 2012 by researchers at the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University http://bit.ly/Pk4skG we now know that that this level of pollution removal is actually much higher than previously thought, making humble street tree & other street vegetation more important than ever for human health.
Previous studies thought street trees captured less than 5% of air pollution from vehicles. The small percentage may have given an out for Councils not to have street tree planting as a priority. However, this study from the Lancaster Environment Centre has shown that –
- “increasing deposition by the planting of vegetation in street canyons can reduce street-level concentrations in those canyons by as much as 40% for nitrogen dioxide & 60% for particulate matter.
- Deposition rates of nitrogen dioxide & particulate matter to vegetation are much higher than those to hard, built surfaces.
- Substantial street-level air quality improvements can be gained through action at the scale of a single street canyon or across city-sized areas of canyons.
- Vegetation will continue to offer benefits in the reduction of pollution even if the traffic source is removed from city centers.”
I love what this property in Stanmore has done with the area along the laneway outside their house. You see this type of area often & mostly they are left to the weeds.
What wonderful research. It clearly shows that the budgetary spending by Councils needs to be much higher for planting street trees & increasing the urban forest as trees are very much a public health issue.
Adding street trees & other vegetation should be a priority along main roads, secondary main roads & along shopping strips. Verge gardens, pots filled with plants, green walls & hanging baskets are examples of vegetation that help to remove vehicle-related particulate matter.
As we know, street trees & other greenery also improves human happiness as well as increasing spending by around 11% along leafy shopping strips (by happy people). Concentrating only on diet & lifestyle issues is not the only consideration public health should be looking at. Green streets full of street trees & other vegetation where trees cannot be planted is an important & vital step to ensuring a population can remain healthy.
Busy Glebe Point Road Glebe is a great example of a green shopping strip. It looks like this for most of its length. Where trees can’t be planted the City of Sydney Council has suspended large hanging baskets or reclaimed a parking space to plant a street tree. It look great & feels great too.
Marrickville Road shopping strip with its few deciduous street trees always strikes me as bare
This section of very busy New Canterbury Road Petersham has looked like this for at least 3 decades.
4 comments
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August 28, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Kate
What a great post Saving Our Trees. I hope Marrickville Council takes note to increase their budget for more and better street planting. There are so many options available and all options should be explored by Council. Vision and foresight is necessary. And light industrial strips should not be ignored as many cars travel through them to get to residential areas.
August 31, 2012 at 12:07 pm
annapoodle
THanks for such an information and sobering article. I echo Kate’s comment that our council reads it also and takes note … and better still, some action!
i know they have tree planting projects, but some areas in our LGA are completely desolate and really need urgent remedial plantings.
too often we see trees being cropped savagely (by Ausgrid usually
August 31, 2012 at 5:57 pm
brenda
This is so informative. Thank you Saving our Trees for this well researched post. It highlights just how important trees are to our health and wellbeing.
I hope council plants as many street trees as it can, especially in ugly industrial areas drowning in concrete.
“Yes” to more garden verges and more green walls.
“Yes” to greater beautification of the LGA.
“Yes” to better health and happiness from trees … and
“Yes” to politicians who will act and plant more trees, take definitive action to protect our environment and work collaboratively with the community to bring to fruition countless possible green projects.
October 3, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Kristina
Thank you for this excellent research SoT. I notice the vast difference in air quality on tree lined streets. Not only are tree lined streets cooler, they are fresher & more beautiful. I really think that large canopy trees make the biggest difference. Large canopy trees on streets make it a pleasure to
either: walk along, drive down, or ride a bike through. And they have a friendly & relaxing feel.
I also notice a vast difference when large canopy trees meet overhead to create a joined canopy – this is magic! The added beauty to the street & all the benefits of cooling & pollution management become really obvious. You can feel it! It is a pleasure to be in these environments.
There are soooo many cars on the roads these days. Traffic is crazy not just in peak hour, but on weekends too. So the more trees we have the better. And I bet there is less road rage on tree lined streets.
As for main roads, a great example can be seen (& the benefit felt) on Ocean St Edgecliff/Woollahra. Now this is a really upmarket area! However, once a tree is planted, it virtually grows for free! So large canopy trees should not be only for the more expensive suburbs!
I’ve also seen these avenues of large canopy trees in Alexandria & suburbs on the Nth shore. There are also a couple of rare places on Salisbury Rd in Stanmore where the trees meet overhead. – These places are fantastic!
I so wish that Marrickville council would take notice of this research & plant large canopy trees. There are only benefits to be had. Our suburbs here need it.