The Road to a Thoughtful Street Tree Master Plan: A practical guide to systemic planning and design

Abstract

Many if not most urban forestry successes and failures begin at the planning stage. The intent of this design manual is to replace as many of the subjective decisions made during street tree design and plant selection with objective criteria. The manual will assist communities and planners to not only select the best trees for their available planting sites, but to use specific principles of street tree design to most effectively create public green spaces, positively affect traffic patterns, and create healthy living spaces.

The format of the design manual is one of prompting questions. This will not only help the user select the best plants for the area, but will pose sufficient questions to better ensure that issues of spacing, relative placement to travel corridors, and a wide variety of design elements will be satisfied. The tree species selection philosophy includes not only whether the tree is hardy enough but whether it can achieve the design function for the area. In theory, a well-placed tree in a well-designed landscape will require less maintenance and yield more rewards for the community.