The tour was well attended, requiring a last-minute addition of a second bus.
done by the City's urban forest staff.
The first half of the tour was led by Toronto Urban
Forestry Planner Peter Simon, an architect and
honorary member of the Ontario Association of
Landscape Architects. For the last 12 years, he has
been developing designs for sidewalks that support
the successful growth of trees. He was accompanied by the phenomenal landscape architect Jim
Urban, who is always worth the ticket money whenever he speaks.
Two coaches set off from the convention centre full
of "munis," who were then unloaded in downtown
Toronto to look at some of the issues surrounding
the establishment of street trees and the innovations employed by the City to address these challenges. We looked at examples of rain gardens
and detention pits where stormwater is intercepted
www.urban-forestry.com
through small gutters set at the edge of the footways; the water then gets funnelled into shrub
beds and tree pits. The group also saw examples
of flexible paving solutions where larger trees had
been retained.
After a hearty impromptu boxed lunch, hastily rearranged due to the torrential rain, we set off for
the lakeside development known as "Sugar Beach,"
east of the City. A video and background info about
this and other Silva Cell projects can be seen here.
The tour finished with a trip to the city nursery,
where the Toronto Urban Forestry division talked to
us about their production methods and selection of
trees. At each stop, much lively discussion ensued.
Let's see what the Milwaukee municipals can do to
top this next year!
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