Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide

Planning and conservation › Transportation › Tools for designing streets › Trees for green streets

This handbook is now available. The handbook describes the role of street trees in managing stormwater and includes detailed color drawings of the trees that best perform this function in the Portland metropolitan area.

How to order

Handbooks are 11 inches wide by 8-1/2 inches tall in size, with soft covers and spiral bindings. Single copies of the handbooks are free (including shipping) to residents of the metro region; there is a charge for multiple copies. Handbooks are for sale to residents outside the metro region.

Buy online using the link below. To place your order by phone or e-mail, or if you have questions, call 503-797-1915 or send e-mail to 2040@oregonmetro.gov.

Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide
Published: June 2002
Price: $9.95
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Street trees perform many functions and provide many benefits including calming traffic, improving air quality and conserving energy. Trees for green streets explains how to use street trees as a stormwater management tool. This resource is intended to be used with the updated Creating livable streets: Street design guidelines for 2040 and the book, Green streets: Innovative solutions for stormwater and stream crossings.

Street trees perform a variety of functions that help reduce the amount and rate of stormwater runoff entering the piped stormwater system. Trees absorb water through their leaves, branches and roots. Trees planted in biofiltration swales slow down water flow even more by allowing water to infiltrate into the soil. While all street trees perform these functions, particular species may perform them better than others depending on characteristics such as:

persistent foliage
canopy spread
longevity
growth rate
drought tolerance
tolerance to saturated soils
resistance to urban pollutants (air and water)
tolerance to poor soils
root pattern
bark texture
foliage texture
branching structure
canopy density.

Appropriate tree species are illustrated in the book, along with a description of major characteristics and advantages and disadvantages of each tree. The street tree guide focuses on the Portland, Ore. region, but tree suggestions apply to any West Coast temperate climate from Vancouver, B.C. to parts of Northern California.

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Trees for green streets: An illustrated guide

How to order