Project may doom cottonwoods along W. Mississippi

This cottonwood tree is one of a handful that stand in the path of a planned sidewalk.

LAKEWOOD – Some of the few remaining cottonwood trees along West Mississippi Avenue may soon fall to make room for a sidewalk.

The city’s sidewalk construction plans include two stretches of sidewalk between Yarrow Street and Butler Way on the south side of Mississippi. Plans call for the irrigation ditch water that helps sustain the majestic old trees to be contained within a pipe buried beneath the new sidewalk.

A line of towering cottonwoods once lined W. Mississippi from Butler Way to Sheridan. But age, road projects and sidewalk construction brought them down. Only a handful of cottonwoods still stand along the street east of the Mississippi/Wadsworth Boulevard intersection.

Now it’s only a matter of time for much of the remnant population west of Wadsworth.

The issue is safety vs. the imposing old trees, said City Councilman Ed Peterson.

“They’re old. They’re hollow. And we’ve got kids, it’s right there by a school,” Peterson said. “When you’re driving down there, especially in the winter time … it gets really icy and right next to that ditch, when cars go in there, it is not a happy situation. I’m just real thankful that we haven’t had a problem or a tragedy.”

In addition to blocking the sun’s thawing light from icy winter streets, aging cottonwood branches become brittle and break off. Their trunks can rot from the inside, leaving them hollow and likely to fall, posing an even greater risk to people walking past.

Peterson said he has been pushing the city for to link the stretches of sidewalk on the south side of W. Mississippi and he is pleased the work finally is on the horizon.

“It looks like finally somebody listened and got it moved up on the priority list,” he said.

The city’s Sidewalk and Bicycle Path program lost it’s funding in 2003, the victim of cutbacks in the Capital Improvement budget. But the program has $2.1 million in one-time funding for 2009-2010. After $400,000 was set aside for use at future light-rail stations, $1.7 million is left for 13 projects culled from a list of 160 requests, said Ann Heine, city engineer.

The projects are in the design phase and most won’t start until next year, Heine told City Council during their June 1 study session.

The work will be limited to connecting existing section of sidewalks in priority areas, including places where the potential exists for pedestrian-vehicle problems.

“We are really just trying to fill in the gaps,” Heine said.

The Mississippi Avenue sidewalk project will connect some existing sidewalks from about  175 feet east of Allison Street to Yarrow Street and from 110 feet west of Butler Way to a point about 125 feet east of Brentwood.

Gaps still will exist east and west of the new sidewalk links, but the cottonwoods probably won’t.

And Peterson doesn’t think the trees will fall without protest.

At the June 1 council study sessions, Peterson said the project’s toll on the trees “is a really challenging area.”

“That’s one we’re going to have to talk to the neighbors about because I’m sure there’s going to be some push-back on saving those trees. They are sort of historic in some instances,” he said.

When the city launched a major project on Mississippi east of Wadsworth about 15 years ago, a number of activists battled to save at least some of the trees, but lost the battle and the cottonwoods.

“It was one of those fights you knew the city was going to win no matter what,” said Edie Bryan, former City Councilwoman and a former member of the city’s Planning Commission. “It’s hard to fight a sidewalk because a sidewalk is needed because a lot of school kids walk along there.”

Bryan long has been an advocate of sidewalks across the city and was known as “the Sidewalk Lady” when she was on the Planning Commission because she advocated for sidewalks throughout the city.

But Bryant thinks the city should try to spare those old trees if at all possible.

“I think an effort should be made. I don’t know whether they can save them or not, but one should try to save as many trees as possible,” she said. “They should go into the design with that in mind, not that you’re going to lay the sidewalk as a straight slab.

“If they even save one or two it would be worth it. I know we can’t save them all.”