Request for Startups: Make Street Trees Cheaper
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If there’s something politicians from every borough and political party can agree on, it’s that NYC should plant a lot more trees.
In February 2022, the five borough presidents, four Democrats and one Republican, formed a united front to ask Mayor Adams to plant a million new trees by 2030.
In a city where changing land-use is divisive and politically gridlocked, planting trees is a change that brings people together.
There’s a ton of good reasons for this. Trees are unambiguously good for the city and its residents. Trees can lower stress hormones and blood pressure. Trees reduce peak summer temperatures through evapotranspiration and shade. And US Forest Service researchers found that New York City street trees currently return $5.60 to the community for every $1 spent on management, in the form of energy savings, stormwater runoff reductions, air quality improvements, and land value increase.
So are we on track to realize the the politically, economically, and socially obvious benefits of 1 million more trees by 2030? No. One large reason is the increasing cost of street trees.
Street trees are planted in public right-of-way outside of city parks. They account for only ~25% of the 1 million tree target (based on the previous 1 million tree initiative from 2008-2017). However, they have an outsized benefits when it comes to reducing pollution, heat, and energy costs for residents. And, since many of the 1 million trees will be planted inside city parks, street trees allow residents of neighborhoods without parks to still get the benefits of new green growth.
However, street trees are more expensive than ever. A Freedom of Information request in 2020 found that the cost to plant a tree has nearly tripled since 2015, while the rate of new street tree planting has dropped from ~20,000 annually to ~6,000 annually in the same time period.
When asked to comment on the rising costs, park officials pointed to the shrinking pool of contractors that plant trees for the city (5 in 2020, down from 10 in 2015).
A wider pool of companies competing for city contracts across the entire lifecycle of a tree could drop the cost of street trees, putting the city back on track for 1 million trees and beyond by 2030.
Making street trees cheaper represents a massive opportunity for companies to rapidly improve the quality of life in NYC. If this opportunity excites you, I’d love to hear from you - DM me.
Watch this space for a deep dive into the process and costs of tree-planting and maintenance in NYC. In the meantime, start your own deep dive with a few cool tree links:
Browse the NYC Street Tree Map, a map of every single street tree in the city.
Read the NYC Tree Planting Standards
Get a permit to plant a tree
Learn the etymology of Manhattan (it’s tree related)
Request a tree if you own property in the city
Become a volunteer steward of trees in NYC