MORE than 500 of Canberra's leafy boulevards in Ainslie, Yarralumla, O'Connor and Red Hill have been stamped with expiration dates as 16,000 trees exceed their safe useful life expectancy in the next 17 years.
The "mass deaths" of trees along arterial roads is a result of major plantings when the territory was established.
Canberrans will for the first time be able to use an online database and map, below, to search their streets for the average age of planted trees and their expected remaining safe useful life. The information is being made public after more than a year of investigations and several freedom of information requests.
The Territory and Municipal Services Directorate has released part of a 2009-12 audit of the capital's 730,000 street trees, including age, average life expectancy remaining and dominant species.
By 2030 trees in 526 streets in the ACT will reach the end of their useful life expectancy and between 2030 and 2050, 175,574 trees on 2874 streets are expected to go.
Vivian Bartone and her family bought a house on Musgrave Street in Yarralumla because of the Chinese elms that line both sides of the street. In summer the branches meet overhead to create a stunning covered avenue.
The 38-year-old was reluctant to move from Belconnen to the south side of Canberra 10 years ago, but the trees won her over.
“My husband is originally from O'Malley and he always wanted to move back to this side, but I'm from the Belconnen area ? . . . and wanted to be around my part of town. But then he took me around Yarralumla and when I saw this street I actually said to him "If you buy a house in this street, I will move to Yarralumla."
The couple's children Elisabeth, 9, Natale, 6, and Francesca, 4, have all grown up with the ulmus parvifolia, but Mrs Bartone is worried about the government's plan to replace dead or dangerous trees.
She wants to see double plantings to keep the capital's established suburbs beautiful.
“We've had people tell us they want to buy our house and are waiting to move into the street because of the trees, even though the blocks here aren't as big as others in Yarralumla."
But director of city services Fleur Flanery said life expectancy data was just a guide and compared it to population life expectancy data.
"My concern is that people reading the information will think it's a black-and-white rule, whereas it's not," Ms Flanery said.
"When we say its useful life expectancy is 60 years, that tree may actually live for 80 years. I guess what we're saying is that we expect it to live 60 years in general good health and structure . . . we're applying it as a asset management tool not as a definitive answer."
The average remaining useful life expectancy of the trees data also uses the dominant species recorded for the street as a guide, but many newer suburban streets have more than one species.
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