From 2023 and into 2024, Urban Forestry worked with Davey Tree, to catalog many public trees in the City of Madison.
Professionals from Davey noted every tree in the city right of way along public streets, and some trees in city parks and in stormwater greenway areas.
"Treekeeper" is the name of this web-based software.
How often will the inventory be updated?
The information will be kept current, but it is not live.
When trees are removed, and when new trees are planted, this map will reflect those changes.
However, this map will not show those changes immediately.
Why are there so many vacant planting sites?
When the inventory work was being completed in 2023-2024, contractors identified potential planting sites based on what they observed above ground.
They did not take into account some potential reasons why a tree may not be able to be planted in some areas. For example, some places have underground utility conflicts that mean we cannot plant a tree.
We will need to work through these potential planting sites to understand how many of them can truly support a tree or not - while also keeping up with other planting work around the city.
The inventory is missing some public trees. Why?
True - not every single public tree in Madison was part of the inventory. This was due to cost, and also time.
Trees in the Engineering Division's stormwater greenway areas were not in the part of the inventory. For example, the Kenosha Greenway on Madison's west side is heavily wooded, but it does not appear on this inventory.
And we could not afford to inventory every single tree in every Madison park. That's why you'll notice some parks might have fewer marks for trees on them than what you would expect.
University & Other Municipalities
We also only serve the City of Madison - so the University of Wisconsin property, or other municipalities (like the Village of Shorewood Hills) will not have trees on this map.
