THE LEAFLET

Summer is the perfect time to explore our great city on two wheels, and some of the city’s best green spaces – the National Arboretum, Kenilworth Gardens, and the stretch of Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park closed off to cars on weekends – are most easily enjoyed via bicycle.

But bikes and trees aren’t necessarily friends. Locking your bike to a tree’s trunk is not only asking a thief to steal it (young trees are often a lot easier to cut through than bike racks), but can also easily damage large, established trees. Wrapping a bike lock around a tree can damage the living tissue that sits right below the tree’s bark, cutting off its nutrient source and making it susceptible to infection and disease.

D.C.’s trees can be many things to us – shade-providers, air purifiers, fruit-bearers and calm-bringers, but bike rack should never be one of them.

Photo courtesy of Fast Company