TREES IN THE STREETS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 114, 13 May 1908, Page 2

TREES IN THE STREETS.

For a city of an area of 1786 acres., Auckland's street mileage is extraordinary. There are 54 miles of streets in ■the city. Of the 317 streets, in only 17 has an attempt at beautifying them by tree-planting teen made. Auckland streets are singularly devoid of trees. There has Ijeen no symtematic pruning of the trees in the streets, and in some streets the trees appear as. though they have never been pruned at all. The pruning that has been done has not been effected in up-to-date style. The following are the streets in which tree-planting has been done: Wellesley-streefc East, Park-street, O_or_e-street, Prinzesstreet, Alfred-street, Grafton-roadj Sy-monds-street, Grey-sfcreet, "Vincent-street - , Howe-street, Hepburn-street, Jervoisroad. Clifton-road, Salisbury-street, Franklin-road, Hardinge-street, and Al-bert-street. In these streets ten varieties of trees have been planted—oak, plane, ash, elm, sycamore, silver birch, poplar, lime, cabbage, and puriri. In eight instances the trees have been planted on the footpath, and in 13 on the carriage ■way, -while in some streets 'both systems have been tried. In a recent report to the the city engineer wrote to -the eSeet that it was.io be regfret-fced ___£ tt> _vy—jg out the streets of the city the tard and fast rule of giving one-third of the thoroughfare to footways and two-thirds to the carriage way.had been adhered to. In the city some streets have for vehicles broad ways, 'w-hieh are expensive to maintain—carriage ways which, even if considerably narrower, could easily cope with the traffic. And -had the allocation Jor vehicular traffic been curtailed, the saving in the original cost and maintenance would have been more than sufficient to found and" keep up a system of beautifying.' In a curtailment of the roadway splendid space would have been provided for the planting of trees, and the result would probably have been a picturesque shade of verdure, which .would have been an almost everlasting ■benefit to the public, and asset to the city. As an instance, in Howe-street, which is 90ft wide, the footpa-ths are only I3ft each, leaving 64ft of roadway, quite 14ft of which is useless owing to trees having been planted sft or 6ft from the path. Kow, in roads 66ft wide, the city-engineer is making the paths each 15ft wide, so as to provide room for tree-planting. This idea is being followed in Curran-street and St. Mary's road. The cost of adequately planting the streets with . trees would pro/ba'bly be fairly heavy. The engineer estimates that the cost of providing and planting each ■tree would average between 7/<5 and 10/. To this would have to be added the_ cost of guards. Reckoning, then, that half the length of streets are suitable for tree-planting, and that 250 trees would be required for each mile, 6750 trees would be required, which, at 10/ each, would cost £3375. The engineer thinks £1000 might be added to provide for guards. This brings the probable outlay to £4375. There would be constant expenditure by way of keeping the trees in order, but the cost in maintenance wonld be heavy only in the first few years. The outlay, of course, need not all be spent in one year. Though the sooner the improvement here advocated is made the better for the city, it -would probably 'be well to spread the work over the next few years. Then the work ■would come under the annual expenditure on parks and street planting. As the Council, so a "Star" reporter has learned from his Worship the Mayor, is prepared to allocate between £ 4000 and £5000 annually towards such improvements of parks and streets, there seem to be hopeful signs of the work being undertaken shortly.