Each time I make that trip I am refreshed. And my street is like hundreds of others locally, my experience widely shared. I might not appreciate this nearly as much but for the trees where I grew up in Rochester. Our home was on an equally shaded street but those trees, unlike today's maples, sycamores and locusts, were American elms, big vase-shaped trees with gracefully drooping branches. But when I returned from service in World War II, those trees were gone, victims of Dutch elm disease.
Trees have many important benefits in addition to their esthetics.
Through photosynthesis they also absorb carbon dioxide, helping to control global climate change for that gas is a major contributor to the heat-trapping greenhouse effect. Their leaves and roots filter ground water, cleansing it of nitrous and sulfur oxides, ozone and other contaminants. For a city the size of Buffalo, this can mean removal of a half million tons of pollutants at a savings of millions of dollars. They reduce stormwater runoff by as much as one-sixth, saving the funds that would be required for larger storm sewers. They moderate the weather and thus save energy.