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Litter-strewn Bay Bridge entrance will soon transform into an urban forest

By Jessica Wolfrom, San Francisco Examiner, April 6, 2022

“[San Francisco] Public Works unveiled plans to build a nursery at [5th and Bryant streets, at the mouth of the Bay Bridge], turning this oft-ignored concrete cranny under Interstate 80 into a burgeoning greenspace.

“[S]ome 1,000 young trees will help absorb emissions spewing from tailpipes and provide green space for residents who lack access to street trees or nearby parks. The trees will be cycled out when they’re mature enough and planted in neighborhoods that suffer from especially low canopy cover, said Rachel Gordon, spokesperson for Public Works.

“ ‘Our built environment is not weatherized to withstand extreme temperatures,’ San Francisco’s Department of Public Health said in a recent report. Right now, it said, The City ‘has limited cooling capacity, and this cooling capacity is not equitably distributed.’

“Despite The City’s goals to expand the street tree population with 50,000 new trees by 2035, the overall number of trees planted in fiscal year 2021-22 decreased from 3955 to 3377 compared to the previous fiscal year, data showed.

“[Carla Short, interim director of Public Works,] said her department is hoping to bolster San Francisco’s tree population through the construction of this nursery, which is being funded through a $2.4 million grant awarded by Caltrans and Cal Fire and is slated for development next year.”

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