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Tom Coumaris is correct. We used to be the city of trees. No amount of uploading fun techy things to the internet will bring that back. There's been a loss of knowledge, and it shows.

Also, and this is a little-known fact, but the DDOT's Dept of Urban Forestry actually has a female gingko mitigation program, whereby if you get enough signatures from homeowners on your block, they'll completely eradicate a certain number of female gingkos and replace them with males.

Unconscionable. Unacceptable. (And not entirely accurate.) According to the UFA rep I talked to, the ENTIRE street (not "enough signatures"), EVERYONE, must agree that the tree(s) must come down. I've lived adjacent to a ginko-lined street half my lifetime. No problem. Yes, Washington used to be the city of trees. Now we are the city that tears down trees.

One other problem is that when we lose mature trees, DC (with Pepco's encouragement) is replacing them with flowering fruit trees, thus further losing the shady tree canopy that characterized our city and which provides cooling (and energy saving) summer shade. DDOT's transportation decisions make it worse. Last night, DDOT stunned McLean Gardens residents by announcing that they plan to widen Idaho Avenue to accomodate Giant trucks and other traffic to the Cathedral Commons development in Northwest. This will involve taking down a number of mature, large oak trees that provide shade on Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues. This project was sold as transit oriented development, but now DDOT wants to widen the street and take out the shade canopy. Sad.

by Sarah on Apr 28, 2011 5:19 pm

Sad indeed.

by Jazzy on Apr 29, 2011 6:55 am • link • report