Public trees already have a maintenance schedule and budget, public fruit trees don't need to be about filling hungry people, they're just as much about finding small moments of joy in your community.

Unfortunately, fruiting trees take a lot more maintenance just to keep alive, even moreso if you want them to produce anything worth eating.

I have two plum trees in my front yard that I planted about 5 years ago and they take about as much work to maintain as a small garden patch. Modern fruit trees aren't really natural, they've been bred over time to produce more and more fruit. With so much of its energy going to produce fruit, it leaves them more susceptible to disease and especially pests.

If you like gardening it's a great little hobby, but I couldn't imagine the amount of work it would take to maintain hundreds or even dozens of public trees. Plus, I'm not so sure how comfortable I would be eating the fruits of trees absorbing all the petrochemicals from road wash.