What’s going on with all the traffic in Santa Monica today? Well, they’re cutting down trees. A LOT OF TREES. Although many Treesavers protested the big chop, today they lost. 23 Fiscus trees were chopped down and 254 ginkgoes will replace them. The entire project will cost a total of $8 million. The trees were a popular choice in the 1960’s because they provide shade and required little maintenance, but it is now being said that trees interfered with bus traffic roots, cracked sidewalks, and could cause lawsuits.
There are fewer ficus trees along the streets of downtown Santa Monica after the city felled 23 of them Friday for a multimillion-dollar street scape project.
The removal capped a months-long battle between the city and members of Santa Monica Treesavers, which filed suit last year over the plan, and whose members had threatened to chain themselves to the trees.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed And checkout our coffee competition to win a $30 gift voucher to your favourite coffee shop : click hereThat didn’t happen on Friday, because “there’s nothing left to chain ourselves to but the stumps,” Treesavers member Susan Hartley said.
The cutting began at about 6 a.m., when the city blocked Second Street between Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards. City spokeswoman Kate Vernez said the city chose the early hour to avoid traffic delays.
“They caught us off guard,” said longtime local activist Jerry Rubin, who leads Treesavers. Added Hartley, “It’s the slaughter on Second. The trees and the people be damned.”
The Treesavers didn’t buy that and launched into a eight-monthcourt battle that reached its emotional crescendo Friday morning as chain saws tore into bark.
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1 Liana Aghajanian // May 17, 2008 at 11:45 am
Aha! So this is what all the hulaballoo was about!
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