What is a tree worth?

PBOT has different answers, depending on who's asking

A grand street tree at Southwest Sixth near Jefferson takes priority over a parking stall.

When a neighborhood representative suggested that expanding tree wells to protect prominent trees, Stanley Ong, who manages the Northwest Parking Stakeholders Advisory Committee for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said, “Expanding the tree vault into the street by 4 or 6 feet would prohibit that from being a valid parking space.”

Committee member Steve Pinger told him, “Go look at the curb in front of the University Club in downtown for an example of how they manage to figure it out.”

That tree on Southwest Sixth Avenue, incidentally, happens to be a few feet from my front door, making it convenient to provide that point of reference.

A couple of years ago, saving parking spaces was a secondary matter to PBOT. The bureau was willing to remove up to 30 street trees along Northwest 21st and 23rd avenues to accommodate wider sidewalks near intersections. Neighbors balked, some put yellow ribbons around the targeted trees, and PBOT backed off.

That was one of many PBOT projects in the Northwest District in recent years that have removed parking spaces. The bureau still supports two-way streetcar tracks on 23rd Avenue north of Lovejoy that could wipe more parking spots than a tree well here and there.