City pushes to fix sidewalks

In December 2014, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) created a plan that identified Madrona as one of the three case-study neighborhoods to examine how to improve pedestrian access to sidewalks.

The Trees and Sidewalks Operation Plan is intended to fix the issues of trees obstructing the sidewalks in each of the three selected neighborhoods. The draft of the plan, which is now closed for comments, addresses Madrona, Lake City and Rainier Beach, and listed out the responsibilities of how this plan will be carried out when finalized.

“The big picture of what the plan does is help identify the ways we are going to approach managing conflicts between trees and sidewalks,” said project lead Jennifer Wieland. “The plan is to help improve and create accessible walking surfaces in the three case-study neighborhoods.”

The plan also evaluates the state of the trees. Although removing a tree that appears to be damaging sidewalks seems to be the simple solution, Wieland said that trees have their own importance existing within these selected neighborhoods.

“This plan also has a content-level design, which looks at each tree in that particular project area and identifies our initial assessment if it is possible to retain that tree, needs more evaluation to maintain its health or [needs to] come out,” Wieland said.

The case study involves the urban forestry division and street maintenance division, as well as arborists and engineers. Altogether, each department can help see which types of trees will work well with sidewalks in the given future with a better design.

Addressing different conditions

Madrona Community Council president Holly Smith recognized the need for repairing the sidewalks in his neighborhood. He also sees different areas in Madrona that lack the proper design that helped cause the obstructions.

“On 34th Avenue, it has planting strips that are only around 2 feet wide and weren’t designed to have these big trees,” Smith explained. “On 35th [Avenue], there are 10-feet-wide planting strips, which has a better design than 34th to have more space for trees and for people to walk through.”

Smith hears the complaints from people as well. The Madrona Community Council has asked the community for comments and heard different perspectives on the plan, along with some concerns.

“We had people that were pro-tree and didn’t want any trees taken down,” Smith said. “Then there were people who lived on the block with the damages and wanted trees that buckled the sidewalks to be all taken out. Madrona was chosen as a case study because we were the ‘squeaky wheel’ that pursued the city to fix this issue at hand.”

Madrona, Lake City and Rainier Beach each had its own examples of conflicts between trees and sidewalks, which is why these neighborhoods were chosen. Although Madison Park has its fair shares of issues, the neighborhood related to the same problems as Madrona, so the plan is to address different parts of the city with other conditions.

“Madrona was chosen because you can see on 34th Avenue that there are large, beautiful trees that are buckled and impossible to sustain in residential areas, business areas and the park,” Wieland said. “Lake City has a medium-density residential area that needs work with very narrow sidewalks, while Rainier Beach is very commercial, with a ton of traffic, with sidewalks that are challenging in terms of conflicts with the business corridor.”

Madison Park Community Council president Maurice Cooper has a different perspective on the matter. To him, the Trees and Sidewalks Operations Plan is great for the selected communities, but another direction could help the issues at hand, as well.

“The plan is beneficial, but I feel rather than fixing existing sidewalks where there’s trees or tree-root conflicts, I really feel the money would be better spent to create sidewalks in sections in the cities where there aren’t any sidewalks,” Cooper said.

Cooper also identifies an issue with trees and sidewalks with power lines not being underground, which can be a concern. Cooper is originally from England, where the power lines are underground.

“If the power lines were underground, there wouldn’t be such problems with the trees,” Cooper said. “The city wouldn’t need to spend money on chopping the trees or fixing power lines, which could be a new direction in fixing sidewalks and trees.”

Plan already in use

Wieland expects the final plan to go before the Seattle City Council in February. SDOT has already started to use the plan internally for the process guidance it gives.

“I don’t anticipate that there will be any huge changes to the draft plan when finalizing it,” Wieland said. “Madrona already has been funding for a couple of years to repair a block of sidewalks, so that will happen sometime in the spring.”

Smith hopes that his Madrona community will be even more involved with the plan.

“I think the plan has come a long way,” he said. “My hope is that we take the next step in our community to write letters to request the city to make funds toward maintenance, to address the buckled sidewalks and the infrastructure that need work. We need to take care of the city.”

For more information on the Trees and Sidewalks Operation Plan, visit www.seattle.gov/transportation/treesandsidewalks.htm.

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