<story><title>If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity</title><url>https://streets.mn/2023/07/19/if-we-want-a-shift-to-walking-we-need-to-prioritize-dignity/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>voisin</author><text>If we want a shift to walking, we need cities to plant around 100x the number of trees they have.&lt;p&gt;Ever walk through an old, mature neighbourhood? Usually there are tons of people on the sidewalks, and a primary reason is that there are mature trees providing plenty of shade.&lt;p&gt;Then try walking in a new neighbourhood with barely any shade. It is awful.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ericmay</author><text>&amp;gt; Then try walking in a new neighbourhood with barely any shade. It is awful.&lt;p&gt;Neighborhoods you’d typically want to walk in do have shade because they were all built a long time ago and there is somewhere for you to walk to. Suburban neighborhoods aren’t designed that way which is why even if there was shade there’s still nowhere to walk to.&lt;p&gt;I do agree we need more trees planted and more shade. Unfortunately a lot of space near and around places people would want to walk or bike to us instead covered in pavement for cars and parking.&lt;p&gt;We can do more than one thing at once though. We can make areas more walkable while we also plant trees. And we can flip state highway departments [1] so that they focus on serving the people and their needs instead of themselves or a small, vocal minority.&lt;p&gt;[1] Note that departments of transportation in nearly all states are highway and road transit departments first and do next to nothing w.r.t better means of transportation. Their entire context is cars and drivers and you can confirm this by looking at the budget.</text></comment>
<story><title>If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity</title><url>https://streets.mn/2023/07/19/if-we-want-a-shift-to-walking-we-need-to-prioritize-dignity/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>voisin</author><text>If we want a shift to walking, we need cities to plant around 100x the number of trees they have.&lt;p&gt;Ever walk through an old, mature neighbourhood? Usually there are tons of people on the sidewalks, and a primary reason is that there are mature trees providing plenty of shade.&lt;p&gt;Then try walking in a new neighbourhood with barely any shade. It is awful.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>philips</author><text>100%l the lack of tree cover everywhere is criminal.&lt;p&gt;Three sticking points in my experience trying to help manage street trees in a neighborhood of 400 homes:&lt;p&gt;1. Planter strips are too small. This leads to infrastructure conflicts that are costly like lifting sidewalks and exploding irrigation lines. The problem is many municipalities simply have standard streets too wide and planters too narrow.&lt;p&gt;2. Maintaining trees is an ongoing expense and if not managed by an HOA or municipality the costs explode as individuals have to pay a crew to drag out equipment for just a few trees.&lt;p&gt;3. Lack of mandatory diversity- my neighborhood is 60% ash because the builder got a good deal 15 years ago after the emerald ash borer was found out east and wasn’t top of mind in the west yet. If the EAB makes a strong foothold entire blocks will be starting from zero again.</text></comment>