If the region is to achieve MetroFuture’s goal of focused growth, it must ensure that urban communities are healthy places to live. More urban trips would be made using transit (at least 32% of all trips in the Inner Core, versus 14% in 2000), helping to reduce traffic and emissions. The urban environment would also benefit from a dramatic increase in tree canopy coverage. Urban trees provides substantial air quality benefits; trees filter and remove harmful pollutants, such as ozone and particulate matter, helping to mitigate the impacts of air pollution-related asthma. Trees also reduce the urban heat island effect and reduce noise pollution.

MetroFuture supports efforts to increase the region’s urban tree canopy, such as the City of Boston’s goal of increasing canopy coverage from 29% to 35% by planting 100,000 trees before the year 2020. Assuming that other urban municipalities have canopy coverage comparable to that of Boston, MetroFuture identifies a need for 1.2 million trees in order to achieve 35% canopy coverage in the region’s urban communities.

Currently, urban families, many of whom are racial or ethnic minorities, are  urrently suffering from disproportionate exposures to poor air quality. As of 2007, the mean estimated concentration of ambient black carbon in the City of Boston was 0.56 µg/m3, but many neighborhoods exceed this level. Results from a 2003 air quality study show that concentrations of black carbon, which has been associated with decreased cognitive functioning in children and cardiovascular problems in adults, are far greater in inner-city areas than they are in the surrounding suburbs. In fact, researchers have found that black carbon concentrations are up to 3.5 times higher in downtown Boston than in surrounding non-urban regions; areas within 10 miles of downtown are most burdened with dangerous air pollutants.

Objectives:

• By 2030, asthma hospitalization rates in urban municipalities will be no higher then the regional average.
• There will be no urban areas in the region with ambient black carbon levels above 0.56 µg/m3.
• Incidence of lead poisoning will fall to zero by all municipalities by 2030.
• Acres of canopy coverage in urban communities will increase by 20%.