SIDEWALK SURVEYS

Cedars and plums compete for sidewalk space along 2nd Avenue

BELLTOWN

Belltown sidewalks seem to have become a full-scale laboratory for SDOT, the city department of transportation engineers and urban planners. Art projects, sidewalk cafés, bus shelters, bike racks, newspaper vending machines, garbage cans and trees of various ages and diverse species populate the right-of-way, buckling the four-inch concrete and turning the simple business of walking down the block into a hazardous obstacle course.


Fate, as it happens, smiles on the incense cedar (source of pencils and much prized in our cool, dry climate), to the disadvantage of the oak, the plum, the tulip and the maple. Especially the maple, which grows and grows and grows until it's over three feet across and essentially stops pedestrian traffic. Were it a bicycle or a sleepy drunk, we could request it move along, please, and stop blocking the sidewalk. The city is no fan of maples planted on street corners (where they interfere with drivers' sight-lines); they think we need to suck it up and cut them down.

More: What the City wants to do with the trees

The curbside plums, immersed in the blue clay that underlies Belltown's concrete, create their own problems, what with leaves and trash that accumulate in the tree pits, not to mention the muddy barrier to they create for people getting in and out of parked cars. The oaks expand at the bottom and outgrow their home within a few years, roots creating havoc with walkways; the cedars, on the other hand, grow straight and tall and narrow; they play well with others, even if they are, in the eyes of some, not all that attractive.

The tree-lined boulevards of Paris do fine with plane trees, sycamores we'd call them. Or linden trees, the broad-leafed limes. Or chestnuts. All carefully monitored, carefully pruned, each one embedded with a computer chip connected to a central computer. Maintenance of the city's infrastructure (concrete, cobblestone, green) is a civic responsibility, not an afterthought. Seattle's Department of Transportation (which has responsibility for trees on public rights-of-way) could take a lesson in public policy from the City of Light, where beautification isn't left to engineers but is considered one of the primary obligations of elected officials. Are you listening, Mr. Mayor?

Environmental watchdog and green architect Carolyn Geiss is not optimistic either about SDOT's involvement in neighborhood issues like streetscapes, urban landscaping, parking or community centers. "They experiment on Belltown, but when it comes time to actually do it," she tells Curbed, referring to projects in South Lake Union, Pike-Pine, Magnolia Village, Broadway, Greenwood, "they do it right somewhere else."

All previous Sidewalk coverage
All previous Belltown coverage