Jularc
07-17-2007, 12:41 AM
New York 'greener than you would imagine,' park commissioner says
By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer
July 10, 2007, 6:38 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- A tree grows in Brooklyn _ along with more than half a million others on the city's streets. That's almost 20 percent more trees in New York than there were a decade ago, the last time anyone counted.
About 1,000 volunteers walked the streets of the nation's largest city for two summers, counting the trees.
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe on Tuesday called the recently analyzed results of the 2005-2006 tree census "hopeful": About 100,000 more trees shade city pavements than a decade earlier.
The goal now, he says, is to plant another 1 million city trees in the next decade _ with the help of everyone from taxpayers to entertainer Bette Midler.
"If you look at aerial photos, New York looks a lot greener than you would imagine," the commissioner said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "The stereotype of a New York street is a Manhattan street, whereas in fact the vast majority of New York is heavily treed, with maple, oak and sycamore trees in front of single-family homes and small buildings."
In all, surveyors counted 592,130 street trees _ 93,660 more than in the 1995-1996 study, or a 19 percent increase.
Each tree translates into money: For every dollar invested in planting one, there's a more than $5 return, Benepe said, citing an analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service.
A tree means energy savings (from natural air cooling and an insulation effect), carbon dioxide removal and other air quality improvement, storm water management (with the tree absorbing moisture) and increases in property value.
Counting the trees on public and private properties, including parks, New York has an estimated 5.2 million trees, or 24 percent canopy cover, compared to Chicago's 11 percent and Atlanta's 37 percent, according to the Forest Service.
New York's long-term goal is to have 1 million new trees planted by 2017, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced. For the next 10 years starting in September, the city will plant 23,000 each year along city streets, with $250 million in city money already allocated toward the project. The rest will go up in parks and public lots and on private properties.
At an average cost of $1,250 per tree, the public/private partnership will tap funding from various sources including nonprofits such as the New York Restoration Project, founded by Midler to help with community gardening and greening.
The first of the new trees will benefit neighborhoods such as the South Bronx and East Harlem, which have high asthma rates, Benepe said.
Since the latest street tree survey was conducted last summer, experts have been analyzing the facts and figures, including the condition of each tree, species, size and other factors.
The most common New York street tree is the London planetree, a kind of sycamore that's been present in the urban environment for almost a century, followed by the Norway maple.
The tree counters rated more than 90 percent of New York's trees in good to excellent condition. Some are casualties of human factors such as vehicles and vandals, resulting in torn bark, wounds and cavities.
But all in all, the parks commissioner concluded, the trees now growing in New York "lay an excellent groundwork for the mayor's goal to add 1 million."
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc. (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--treecensus0710jul10,0,2794188.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork)
By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer
July 10, 2007, 6:38 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- A tree grows in Brooklyn _ along with more than half a million others on the city's streets. That's almost 20 percent more trees in New York than there were a decade ago, the last time anyone counted.
About 1,000 volunteers walked the streets of the nation's largest city for two summers, counting the trees.
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe on Tuesday called the recently analyzed results of the 2005-2006 tree census "hopeful": About 100,000 more trees shade city pavements than a decade earlier.
The goal now, he says, is to plant another 1 million city trees in the next decade _ with the help of everyone from taxpayers to entertainer Bette Midler.
"If you look at aerial photos, New York looks a lot greener than you would imagine," the commissioner said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "The stereotype of a New York street is a Manhattan street, whereas in fact the vast majority of New York is heavily treed, with maple, oak and sycamore trees in front of single-family homes and small buildings."
In all, surveyors counted 592,130 street trees _ 93,660 more than in the 1995-1996 study, or a 19 percent increase.
Each tree translates into money: For every dollar invested in planting one, there's a more than $5 return, Benepe said, citing an analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service.
A tree means energy savings (from natural air cooling and an insulation effect), carbon dioxide removal and other air quality improvement, storm water management (with the tree absorbing moisture) and increases in property value.
Counting the trees on public and private properties, including parks, New York has an estimated 5.2 million trees, or 24 percent canopy cover, compared to Chicago's 11 percent and Atlanta's 37 percent, according to the Forest Service.
New York's long-term goal is to have 1 million new trees planted by 2017, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced. For the next 10 years starting in September, the city will plant 23,000 each year along city streets, with $250 million in city money already allocated toward the project. The rest will go up in parks and public lots and on private properties.
At an average cost of $1,250 per tree, the public/private partnership will tap funding from various sources including nonprofits such as the New York Restoration Project, founded by Midler to help with community gardening and greening.
The first of the new trees will benefit neighborhoods such as the South Bronx and East Harlem, which have high asthma rates, Benepe said.
Since the latest street tree survey was conducted last summer, experts have been analyzing the facts and figures, including the condition of each tree, species, size and other factors.
The most common New York street tree is the London planetree, a kind of sycamore that's been present in the urban environment for almost a century, followed by the Norway maple.
The tree counters rated more than 90 percent of New York's trees in good to excellent condition. Some are casualties of human factors such as vehicles and vandals, resulting in torn bark, wounds and cavities.
But all in all, the parks commissioner concluded, the trees now growing in New York "lay an excellent groundwork for the mayor's goal to add 1 million."
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc. (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--treecensus0710jul10,0,2794188.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork)
