Opinion: Housing Versus Trees Is a False Choice; Swap Pavement for Trees Instead

Seattle could more easily reach its goal of having 30 percent of the city covered by trees by 2037 by eliminating a third of city-owned parking spaces in favor of trees and plants, writes Ryan DiRaimo in an opinion piece for The Urbanist.

“It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Paris has taken on a similar pledge, promising to replace 60,000 parking spots with street trees by 2030. Paris spans just 41 square miles, so the equivalent goal in 84-square-mile Seattle would be double,” DiRaimo adds.

Most of Seattle’s tree canopy loss between 2112 and 2021, according to the Tree Canopy Assessment, has happened in the city’s parks (46 percent) and single-family neighborhoods (35 percent). Just 10 percent of tree loss occurred due to multifamily development.

According to DiRaimo, “Seattle owns more than 15,000 intersections citywide, and 9,600 of them are on quiet, low-traffic streets inside our grid of neighborhoods. If we convert eight parking spaces into trees, build planted curb bulbs and roundabouts with trees, then each intersection can become 17 new trees. Doing this citywide adds nearly 165,000 trees.”

Ultimately, there’s no need to pit density against trees when pavement takes up a third of the city. “We shouldn’t be fighting more housing as we lower emissions, we should encourage it and find solutions that include trees.”