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Please Keep Sidewalks Clear Of Foliage

October 13, 2012 Featured, Planning & Design, Walkability 6 Comments

There are many sidewalks that I am unable to use. The reasons vary: no curb cut, broken/rough, etc. But I often encounter another problem: foliage.

sidewalk.growth1

ABOVE: Public sidewalk along Loughborough significantly narrowed by overgrown shrubs.

I was able to get past the above just by pushing my way through but a senior walking with a cane, for example, might not be able to get by. Stepping onto the lawn increases the risk of a fall. This is an odd area since the public sidewalk is so far away from the curb and so close to the houses, but those overgrown shrubs need to go.

sidewalk.growth2

ABOVE: I couldn’t get past this growth to reach the #94 MetroBus stop/Wellston MetroLink station, I had to backtrack and take another route.

Keeping tree canopies high enough the average person can walk on the sidewalk without ducking is a good thing. Imagine if roads were similarly blocked with foliage, crews would be dispatched immediately to clear them.

– Steve Patterson

Parent with a Disabled Child

Sidewalks in St Louis are difficult to pass in a wheelchair when the tree roots have raised the concrete. It forces you to go into the grass. Not easy with a manual chair.

In addition, the sidewalk ends out of nowhere. Now you have to cross grass to get on the parks curvy trail. (Sidewalk along Arsenal/Tower Grove park)
JZ71

So what’s the solution? Knock on the door? Send an anonymous note? Call the Citizen’s Service Bureau? The alderman? Carry a machete? Chainsaw? Like many things in the city, it’s already against the law to “illegally obstruct or encroach upon any public right-of-way” – http://previous.slpl.org/cco/code/data/t2028.htm – but I can’t find a definition of “illegal” (versus “natural”) The city also has laws against “hazardous” sidewalks – http://previous.slpl.org/cco/code/data/t2026.htm – but, again, doesn’t seem to define “hazardous” versus “natural”. The Director of Streets is tasked with compliance, but needs a complaint to take action. Then there’s the property owners. They can be clueless. They can be elderly and not really capable of maintaining things anymore. They can love plants, and not want to cut any of them. They can be passive-aggressive, and resent being told to do anything, especially by the city. And plants being plants, actual growing things, what may have been good a week or a month ago may have grown into a problem today – one of my pet peeves, being tall, is getting smacked in the head, especially in the dark!
- http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson
  
  My second example is located in Wellston, one of 91 municipalities in St. Louis County and just a few hundred feet from a well-used MetroBus stop and a MetroLink station.
moe

We just had this discussion on one of our neighborhood listserves. In the City, they have a 50/50 program where a homeowner only pays for 50% of the cost of repair. That’s a big bundle of help to repair those cracked, shifted pads. However it is up to the owner to make the request and pay for their share. Usually they are not cited unless they have collapsed, buckled more than a few inches, etc. Having said that though, it is the owners responsibility to take care of the shrubs overhanging, encroaching on the sidewalks…even though the owner owns the house side, and the other side of the sidewalk is owned by the city (tree lawns they call them). The City will come and trim large, heavy branches or remove dead growth/trees, but the small stuff is homeowner responsibility. Some neighbors have trimmed other’s growth as a niceity, others have called the Citzens Service Bureau (for a particularly unresponsive owner), and still others have taken to trimming trees in the dark because the homeowner wont.
It’s an on-going battle
But what this indicates is it isn’t so much any City’s fault…..but the homeowner and how little they value/appreciate/like (whatever word you care to use) the pedestrian, much less those with strollers, walkers, mobile chairs…..and that folks leads to Steve’s non-profit…..If a homeowner doesn’t take care of their sidewalk…how much do you think they walk, bus, or bike it? I’m willing to bet a tiny, tiny percentage.
Figure out why these people don’t/won’t and you’ll see increased walking/bikiing/ and even neighborliness!
aaronlevi

though i am able bodied, at 6’4″, i concur. if you have a tree planted in the lawn between sidewalk/street in front of your house, it is your responsibility to keep it trimmed so that i can walk down the sidewalk without ducking(and also so a reasonably sized car can pull up to the curb without scratching their paint job).
MiamiStreet63139

The city should just cut it and send a $200 bill to the homeowner. I keep my trees trimmed and do so for an elderly neighbor. No excuse for blocking public right-of-way.

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