Charles, I like metasequoia....where are you, what is your site like and is it the city's property between the sidewalk and the curb we are talking about though?

Many municipalities have restrictions on what kind of street trees are acceptable. Check with your local authorities to see if they have any such restrictions before you make your choice.

And "best" is a really nebulous term :-) What may work best for you will depend on what you want from the tree (flowering, fall color, etc.), where you live, how large a tree the area can accommodate, the presence of any overhead wiring and any number of other variables.

You need to define your parameters a little more clearly to get any meaningful suggestions.

Right^. Not to mention the numerous site factors, regional considerations, etc. For an example of the latter, various species of ash tree used to be the most absolutely bullet-proof street trees in my area. But today, it would be foolhardy to be planting ash. We have emerald ash borer in our vicinity. So we need to know more about your location, your communities regulations, your own preferences, and so on.

+oM

Personally, I would start with one that requires no additional maintenance for your hardiness zone and whose eventual mature size will still fit adequately within your space (including its root spread if it has "invasive roots"). Native or non-invasive naturalized species would be preferred. As well as being structurally strong (if slower-growing) rather than fast-growing but weak. And from that pool, select one that provides maximum edible/medicinal and ornamental value.

But yea, start with your hardiness zone as the first cut to start narrowing your selections down...

Dawn redwood - like other redwoods - produces a quite large specimen in time. Look to see if your community regulates street tree plantings before choosing and planting a street tree.

Ginkgo.

Seriously...insufficient data. What zone are you in? How many feet from the road? Does your area use road salt in the winter? Is it very polluted? How many feet from the power lines? Will it be in a tiny square cut into the sidewalk? Do you like evergreens, birds, flowers, or fruit?

Ginkgo and honeylocust take better then most trees to being planted near a road and splattered with road salt. Crabapple also do pretty well, as do hawthorn.

If you are in a suburban area you could try something more unusual, like Tupelo, Sassafras or American Persimmon.

Personally, I think that American Beech are among the most beautiful trees around, but they don't take well to urban environments

Heh, Ed-American beech indeed-probably merely the most difficult species of all known temperate-zone trees to manage and get to survive/thrive in the manmade landscape!

+oM

Small number of older examples of American beech seen here have comparatively low, broad tops which would not work along a roadway. If a road is busy at all and there are other constraints like overhead wires really nothing fits in the space over the long term that does not remain as an abnormally short and narrow specimen - it seems that much of the time what people should really be planting is something like top grafted shrubs instead of true trees.

Emb, via pruning, we are able to routinely "sculpt" trees otherwise too wide-spreading into terrace land. The malleability of plants is one of their most important features. So....rather than pruning via garbage trucks/snowplows, we send crews out to "raise up" as well as do other necessary pruning on our thousands of street trees. Most other communities, at least around here, do the same. I would suggest that a top-worked shrub or gew gaw of any kind utterly misses the whole point of street trees, which is framing the street, diminishing the harsh glare of 60 ft. + of gleaming concrete, interrupting stormwater, shading, offering sense ( and sometimes, the reality) of security to pedestrians, sheltered as they are from road traffic.....uh, there's more, lol!

+om

" So....rather than pruning via garbage trucks/snowplows, we send crews
out to "raise up" as well as do other necessary pruning on our thousands
of street trees. Most other communities, at least around here, do the
same."

Oy!! You should see what the crews do to street trees around here. I'm not sure I would call it "pruning". Much more apt to be "butchering" :-)) Generally all they do is whack off the side of the tree that is interfering with traffic or powerlines. And I'm not at all sure they know what a proper pruning cut is if the end results are any indication.

Yes, public works operations in communities here do not always have the budget and manpower to be keeping up with sometimes quite large numbers of sideways branching street trees that grow right out into traffic lanes. Why plant something that you know is going to produce such problems, and will keep doing so until - and IF - it gets above vehicle height? And may not get pruned in the most careful manner in the meantime?

It is the same as any other wrong tree in the wrong place situation. Tall, elm-like shade trees over traffic is successfully a feature of boulevards and not ordinary streets, with their narrow planting strips, overhead wires, need for access to parked vehicles, sidewalks, buildings close to the street and so on. Towns of much size here have quantities of street trees that don't fit where they are. It costs money to deal with this situation.

Roystonea regia.

Not if there are wires.

OP did not mention wires at all that I can see, nor location. I just like Royal palms lining the streets.

Pruning can make all sorts of things fit...it's a bit labor intensive, though. Not all trees take as well to pruning. Many spruce don't really seem to take well to pruning.

A tree I never see used as a street tree is American Holly. Prunable, somewhat salt tolerant, has berries that provide winter interest without making a mess.

Beach was something I tossed out as an option in case you are in a suburban area with a fair amount of space.

Yes: off the street = whole different story.

I second the vote for Roystonea regia. No zonal info. provided. So, a stately avenue tree (someplace out of Antarctica),

Definitely, Roystonia.

It seems that somehow, without really trying, I've lived my whole life in the one region where street tree pruning/maintenance is a regular feature of municipal infrastructure management. No, this isn't sarcasm-I'm really surprised, what with having belonged to the ISA (International Society of Arboriculture), the Wisconsin Arborist's Association, and other related groups, where all we talk about is trees and their maintenance, and where numerous speakers from all over the country (and world) come with their PowerPoint slides and offer picture after picture of trees, different management strategies on trees, different outcomes, etc. Is it so that west coast cities in particular are less able to manage their trees? I really mean this: You guys seem surprised at management regimes I take for granted, and about which numerous practitioners from all over the country are well versed. I mention these commonplace things here and the cries of "impossible" rise up. We do this stuff all the time, so does Green Bay, so does Milwaukee, so does Chicago-heading out of state now, so does Cincinnati, so does NYC. Is the west coast singularly that far back in terms of municipal arboriculture?

+oM

Tom, on the left coast people seem to forget street trees need regular pruning, so cut Park's budget when a downturn hits and never seem to return the funds when economy picks up again. My wife is going out to CA soon to talk to WCISA about how she got decent funding for EAB here in Denver, which seems to be blowing the minds of many muni foresters & creating a demand for her "crazy" skillz...

I think the amount of attention provided to street trees depends on location. In Seattle (where I am most familiar with the street tree situation), there are both city owned trees and privately owned trees on the right of ways. The city tends their trees and homeowners tend their own :-) You can see where this is going......city owned trees are pruned carefully and properly as needed. Privately owned trees, not so much. And a permit is required as well.

It is also very different in the suburbs. Street trees there are most often chosen and planted by the local municipality who may or may not have the funds to attend to them properly after planting. And this is most often where one encounters inappropriate tree choices and powerline conflicts. Typically, they just hire a tree pruning service (like Asplundh) and they just hack away to clear the powerlines. The result usually leaves much to be desired.

Thanks both of you. I was starting to get that weird feeling like somehow, I woke up on the wrong planet today! I should say too that little villages and dinkier cities here too often have minimal or no program. But in the medium-sized city I happen to live in and work for, a very comprehensive urban forestry program has been in place since the 1950s. And this is not at all an exception to the rule. Another key piece of the puzzle is that the community-whatever its size-have a tree ordinance of some kind. In my community again, we have such an ordinance, which means, among other things, that when Asplundh or whomever does their contractual work for the power company, at least they have to make target pruning cuts, not just random heading back cuts at exactly 6 or 10 feet or whatever requirement that size or voltage line is assigned. Still not perfect, but all one need do is cross the line into one of the suburban and less regulated communities to see the difference in treatment the trees get.

So back to the meat of this thread: Where overhead lines are not present, street trees "should" be tall-growing types. Shade is one key function, as are the multiple benefits I list above. Small-to-mature ornamental species will never satisfy these requirements-they simply don't get large enough. Further-and I say this all the time-their crowns (of small, ornamental species) occupy the same real estate that we do, low to the ground, right where we walk or ride our bikes, right where our garbage trucks drive, etc. so that there's really no space for the tree to exist. Not saying we have none of this feature. I'm afraid my colleague the City Forester bought into the downsizing of the urban forest along with the rest of the nation when working under power lines, and maybe there's no avoiding it. I'd rather we planted full-size stuff there too, but via pruning, pre-valley them out so that at least we had actual shade-producing trees there, but that ain't happening, so I move on. But where overhead space is not restricted, it's an awful waste to plant some dinky thing.

+oM