A bike ride through Boise’s North End manages to feel refreshing even on some of the hottest summer days.
This is no fluke. The decades-old trees planted throughout the neighborhood’s streets provide dense shade cover and keep temperatures cool for residents in their homes and those walking and biking past the area. The high-income neighborhood benefits from the shade, making it noticeably cooler than some of Boise’s newer or less economically well-off neighborhoods, like on the Boise Bench, with fewer trees and wide asphalt roads reflecting the heat of the beating sun.
Since 2020, part of the City of Boise’s work to prepare for the impacts of climate change has included an effort to plant 100,000 new trees in the city by 2030 through the Elaine Clegg City of Trees Challenge. The effort, which also included a push to plant 235,000 seedlings on Boise National Forest land ravaged by wildfire, aims to grow the city’s tree canopy and spread the shady protection to all city residents…