Mobility committee briefed on TARP—indings and 12 recommendations to ease barriers to street trees in Austin

Michelle Marks, transportation officer with Transportation and Public Works, told the Mobility Committee that a Technical Advisory Review Panel (TARP) working group spent roughly nine months reviewing barriers to street-tree installation and maintenance and produced 12 recommendations for city leadership.

The recommendations were developed in response to a March 21, 2024, council resolution directing the city manager to "explore right-of-way design and management plan" and identify barriers to green infrastructure in Austin rights of way. Marks said the working groupwhich included interdepartmental representatives and private-development designersfocused its first phase on clearing regulatory obstacles in administrative manuals and criteria documents.

"Trees really are vital in public infrastructure when it comes to heat mitigation, when it comes to climate resilience," Marks said. She told the committee the group prioritized changes to the Transportation Criteria Manual (TCM) so the TCM would clearly treat street-tree design as part of the sidewalk corridor rather than forcing designers to map scattered provisions across multiple manuals.

Key regulatory and process recommendations presented by staff include: - Revise the Transportation Criteria Manual to provide clear,…