http://fox4kc.com/2012/09/13/neighbors- ... -sidewalk/

The canopy of branches that forms above those blocks* is a quiet landmark.
Unfortunately, like most distinctive pieces of this place, it wouldn't draw attention 'til gone.

Treeless, you may as well be out in some shit-can like Raytown, Basehor, Tonganoxie. Those trees are essential to the character of the Kansas City.

*Tracy, Forest, so on

You have obviously never been to Raytown. There are few places I've ever been with more tree cover.

That's bleeping inexcusable. The same thing happened in Brookside a couple years back. New sidewalks were put in the 5800 block of Locust and all the old trees were cut down. People freaked out, the city promised never to do it again. How hard is it to change the contract language so this doesn't keep happening?

Alright, I'm mistaken re: Raytown, however the rest is right-on. An old city should contain old growth.

Alright, http://www.facebook.com/events/474001012634161/

'SOS Save Our Sycamores' is the link- explains what's going on and an invite to the protest/town hall meeting at 4600 Paseo today, at three pm.

Alright, http://www.facebook.com/events/474001012634161/

'SOS Save Our Sycamores' is the link- explains what's going on and an invite to the protest/town hall meeting at 4600 Paseo today, at three pm.

The irony of this "green impact zone" project cutting down trees for no "good" reason is unbelievable. Not surprising, though.

Why is it not surprising?

Here's a tweet from the City Manager two days ago:

"Trees in Manheim neighborhood. Facts: 140 will be saved, 68 to be removed are dying, or too big for project. All lost will replanted."

Saw that. Tweeted back that none of us will be alive when the replacement trees reach the size the current ones are.

"dying".
I am slowly dying as well. I might as well jump off the Bond Bridge and call it a day.

Dying is a B.S. response. "Too big" is also ridiculous. Sidewalk design and location can adjust to compensate for extra healthy trees. City engineers have a hard time “adjusting” for existing conditions.

Sure….maybe 10 or 15 trees were structurally unsound or in extreme decline. Those should be replaced, but most of the removed trees did not fit this criteria.

They were simply trees that did not fit within the prototypical design criteria for the engineer.

The tree removal contractor was in a hurry to remove them quickly before someone figured out this was a bad idea.

Completely agree. 68 trees is a huge number.

From some informal observations, the mortality rate of new street trees has to be well over 50%.

I would think homeowners would be happy to get rid of these sycamores. As an urban street tree these are trash trees. That pretty bark is always shedding. You usually see sycamores in the wild along watercourses. In the yard this gives them an uncanny ability to send roots into storm and sanitary sewers. The worst of all is honeydew. Those large juicey leaves play host to infinitessimal hordes of aphids. They secrete a substance called honeydew which ants love. Honeydew is actually aphid shit. It rains down upon cars and leaves them looking like someone covered the car with a mister bottle full of sticky sap. It will coat even the windows to invisibility and is difficult to wash off. You do not want to park you auto under a sycamore.

Easy to say, but wouldn't you rather have a messy shade tree than no tree at all. Every tree makes some mess. Sycamores are on the messy end of the spectrum. I know I wouldn't decide to plant sycamores down my street, but given the choice of sycamore or nothing....I take the messy sycamore.

One thing about sycamores that we forget is how durable they are. I bet other streets in the neighborhood were planted at the same time with maples, ash or linden. I also bet those other trees are mostly long gone because they do not live as long as sycamores in urban environments. If I was the city and I was planting trees, I would prefer a tree that lived longer to spread out the planting investment over more years and provide all the benefits a large tree provides (environmentally & socially) better than replanting maples every 20 to 30 years.

I live on a great street beautifully lined with old green ash. With emerald ash borer coming my way....I would rather have sycamore instead of losing all these ash trees.

Saw on TV news a story about the number of trees to be lost as they move the space shuttle from LAX to its new home in a science center.

Yeah, Los Angeles is cutting down 400+ trees on the route through the hood to the Science Center. The neighborhood organization there was quoted as feeling ''the city went behind our backs.''

'Trash Trees?' Again, this is a clash of values- what's worth saving: cars' cleanliness, straight sidewalks, or trees. I think we don't fully grasp the value of trees, I'm no expert, but so.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree. The Sycamore is lovely, tough, fast growing and, above all, native to this region. They thrive in tree lawns, are fucking gorgeous and provide loads of shade. The idea that it is "too hard" to deal with the detritus and aphid shit of a sycamore but totally normal to pamper and baby non-native grass lawns (not that you are making that argument) is absurd. This country is going to have to get pretty real pretty soon about the fact that lawngrass is the largest agricultural crop in America and what an ecological (and cultural) disaster that is. I can't think of a single argument that trumps the nativity of those trees to their place in our urban and rural landscape.

I'll take the sycamore and the shading it provides my house any day. My energy bills would be much, much higher if I didn't have one on the west side of my house.

I drove thru the neighborhood this weekend. The older sidewalks are in terrible shape, no thanks to the huge sycamores. That said, all but a couple of the trees marked with an X are in perfect health. They are simply too large for prototype sidewalk placement. A tiny bit of creativity in the sidewalk design would save these trees.

These sycamore really do define this neighborhood. The areas without them feel more run-down than the areas with them. The city should replace every fallen tree AND place new trees where they were lost long ago.

Wasn't the Parks Department complaining this spring about not having the money to replace trees that had already died?