To the editor:
I often drive along Gallivan Blvd. and lament that those trees and other shrubs have either not been maintained or else lost to road salt and other road hazards. I also thought that over the years they would transform the island into a structure more like planters than what we initially did.
In Quincy along Bergin Parkway heading to Braintree & Rte 3 you can see that the planters installed along that stretch of road are in great shape.
The City of Quincy under Mayor Koch’s leadership has just newly constructed two parkways to honor generals, including two with Quincy/Dorchester roots. The dedication is September 11.
The dedication of the roads and a bridge from Burgin Parkway will be the focus of a new Generals Park dedicated to several who came from Quincy.
William J. Geary, Esq.
Quincy
(The writer, as MDC Commissioner in the Dukakis administration, was in charge of planting the trees along Gallivan Blvd.)
To the editor:
I, too, have noticed the condition of the few remaining trees on the median on Gallivan Blvd., so I zoned in on Ed Forry’s editorial in last week’s Reporter.
As a resident of Uphams Corner with a desire to see some semblance of the Emerald Necklace brought back to Columbia Road, I once had an enlightening conversation with the City’s arborist about the challenges of planting and maintaining street trees. It started with my comment that the VFW Parkway has thriving, mature trees, so why can’t we have them in Dorchester?
Here’s what I learned: To survive, street trees need protection against road salt. On the VFW Parkway, the curbs are set really high so that salt is cast back onto the roadway, and not onto the median. This isn’t the case on either Columbia Road or on Gallivan Blvd.
Trees also need a certain amount of space, so the median needs to be wide enough to support them. Most of Columbia Road has a wide enough median but Gallivan Blvd. really doesn’t. Short of widening the median by narrowing the roadway, trees are likely to fail there. A more practical approach might be to install rectangular planters and consider trees along the sidewalks where there’s more space.
Maintenance is a separate but related issue. As I understand it, the contractors who are hired by the City to plant trees are supposed to water the trees for the first year. If a tree dies within that year, they are required to replace it. The watering rarely happens (I would have said “never happens,” but I did hear one report recently of a tree actually being watered.)
More commonly, the contractor installs a water bag on the tree and that’s the end of it. It appears that it may be less costly for a contractor to replace a tree than to water it – assuming of course, that someone even notices the tree is dead and reports it to the City. After one replacement, they are off the hook. The incentives seem misaligned here.
Then there is the problem of infighting between the City’s Parks and Public Works departments over who is responsible for what. Don’t even get me started about the community’s failed pleas to get some agency to maintain the planters the City installed at Uphams Corner. If that weren’t enough, there is the division of turf between the City and DCR. Columbia Road Belongs to DCR for part of its length and to the City for the remainder. Go figure.
Anyone who drives through Franklin Park and over to Forest Hills has probably noticed that roughly two-thirds of the trees planted where the overpass used to be are either dead or dying. The garden beds are choked with weeds along the entire stretch. This one belongs to the State – or at least I think it does. Or maybe only part of it does. How does anyone ever know for sure?
Marti Glynn
Payson Avenue
To the editor:
My gosh your editorial & Kilmer! I’m just staring at the probable site of Neponset Wharf on the front page. For a long time, I look, and I repeat over and over: “trees, trees, trees, trees, build a forest, not buildings.” I get to your editorial: “…a poem as lovely as a tree.” But it’s not about the Wharf or should Wharf be “Barf”?
What went wrong with humankind? Every tree destroyed for pavement, glass, steel, or concrete represents the destruction of earth by humans. Truly a stupid lifeform.
John J. Madden
Mashpee
