In Downtown, we love trees, one of man’s best friends. So we want to give a shout out to the District Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) for training about a dozen Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance employees (SAMs) last week on how to inspect trees and determine their health and vitality in an urban environment. The lesson will help SAMs improve the quality of street reporting so that the best resources can be allocated to address the more than 2,700 street trees located in the DowntownDC BID area. Trees counteract urban challenges such as urban heat islands, absorb pollution and improve the pedestrian environment by providing shade and creating more pleasant public spaces.
One of UFA’s arborists assigned to Downtown covered topics such as tree health, pruning, and tree removal with the SAMs and provided a walkthrough of a BID area location to identify tree conditions up close and personal. The training also included a discussion on the following type of service requests: new tree plantings, arborist inspections, removal markings and tree species selection in the BID area. Many SAMs on the Public Space Management Quality Assurance Team (QAT) participated, as did a few Maintenance Team members, who witness tree conditions regularly as they make their rounds. The training particularly enhanced QAT members’ understanding of tree health and UFA’s effort to increase the urban canopy—the percentage of ground that has tree cover overhead—in D.C. The city’s goal is to increase the canopy to 40 percent by 2035.
UFA maintains all street trees in D.C. and regularly collaborates with the BID on tree projects and matters that impact street trees, seeking ways to improve conditions associated with them. Over the past two years, UFA has completed more than 400 tree-related service requests within the BID, including many conditions reported by the QAT.