Trees add beauty to our city

We’d all like to see more trees because they look good, they cool the city, and they clean our air.

Yarra policy

The City of Yarra has adopted an Urban Forest Strategy, and has published guidelines on embedding green infrastructure. Streets Alive Yarra supports the vision, objectives and targets of the strategy; and even better would be a higher target based on a commitment to reallocate space away from on-street parking.

Image credit: City of Yarra

What Yarra can do

Yarra can make streets better for trees by re-allocating space from on-street parking to trees. Another option is to reallocate space to wider footpaths, which can host larger numbers of people walking as well as space for trees and seating.

Image credit: Strong Towns

Example – shopping street

Typical 20-metre wide tram-based shopping streets, such as Swan Street or Brunswick Street, can have 6.4 metre wide areas that offer space for trees, walking, and cycling.

20-metre wide tram-based shopping street. Image credit: Streets Alive Yarra and StreetMix.

Example – access street

Typical 15-metre wide access streets, such as Cremorne Street, can have trees on opposite the side to the overhead power lines, enabling trees to grow to their full height.

15-metre wide access street. Trees on one side and power poles on the other. Image credit: Streets Alive Yarra and StreetMix.

Example – residential street

Residential streets can support a dense urban forest by planting a tree in between each on-street car parking bay.

Example of trees between parked cars (in Kensington, Melbourne). Image credit: Google Maps.
Street trees between on-street parking bays in Bologna Italy, showing how they form a dense urban forest. Image source: Sam Bloch on Twitter.

Support from Resilient Melbourne

Resilient Melbourne and The Nature Conservancy have published Living Melbourne: Our metropolitan urban forest strategy:

Image credit: Resilient Melbourne

Design guides

Learn more from this collection of design guides, including the Adelaide Design Manual Section 05 on Greening:

Image credit: Adelaide Design Manual

Local champion

Your local champion for trees is Australian Conservation Foundation Inner Melbourne (ACFIM). View all of Streets Alive Yarra’s champions on our supporters page.

As a local community volunteers group of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), we strongly support the goals and motivations of Streets Alive Yarra. ACF also aims to be an advocate for respecting and protecting nature at a national and local level so Streets Alive Yarra’s promotion of planting more trees to visually calm our streetscapes and enhance a feeling of nature around us is vital. Their promotion of a vibrant and safe urban environment for us all conveys our approach too—that us human beings are ultimately dependant on our urban and native environment for our wellbeing and at the end of the day our productivity as well. ACFIM partners with Melbourne Girls College in a native re-vegetation project on the Yarra River, so like Streets Alive Yarra we want to be part of the solutions to protecting and enjoying the beauty of life around us.

Don Vogt, Australian Conservation Foundation Inner Melbourne
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