A certified arborist, Ellis joined the SDOT branch last year from the urban forestry department under city arborist Nolan Rundquist. Her move to the pavement managing and engineering team, which specializes in sidewalk safety, came as a result of the voter approved Bridging the Gap funding.
The nine-year, $365 million transportation levy was passed in Nov. 2006 elections. It is designed to decrease maintenance backlog and invest in transit service, bike trails and sidewalks. "[The levy] provided us with a fabulous opportunity to catch up on this incredible backlog of damaged sidewalks," Ellis asserted.
Known as city project 2007- 155, the small-scale repair encompasses the sidewalk along the north side of East Madison Street between 41st Avenue East by Tully's to the east and McGilvra Boulevard near the Washington Mutual building to the west. The six sweet gum trees, which Ellis noted can grow to a height of 80 feet, along this strip have grown out of their tree wells, their roots rippling around the old pavement and creating plenty of opportunities for pedestrians to trip on knots of wood and sloped, cracked concrete and asphalt.
"The goal is to get the business area safe to walk in," said Madison Park Community Council president Jim Hagen during a recent tour of the treecaused damage decades in the making.
Ellis noted that SDOT is partnering with a neighborhood trio composed of the Council, Historic Madison Park and the businesses immediately affected by the work (Tully's and the Washington Mutual complex). Together, this alliance is known as the Madison Park Streetscape Committee, technically an offshoot of the Madison Park Community Council.
"It soon became obvious that what we were doing would take too much time from the council," noted Carol Simon, secretary of Historic Madison Park and the Madison Park Community Council. The group formed last June, shortly after receiving a $50,000 city grant that is being leveraged with $20,000 from the Sidewalk Safety Repair Program and up to $10,000 from the Urban Forestry Program, Ellis noted.
Ideally, the Streetscape Committee hopes to develop a district-wide streetscape plan to remove and replace all 17 of the area's sidewalkbuckling sweet gum trees. Five paper bark maples will be replace the six trees slated for removal.
"It's a smaller-scaled, slower-growing maple," Ellis described. "They have shiny and fl aky bark. It's very interesting. They have a typical dark, green maple leaf."
An old problem
"I've been working with the Madison Park people for years, back in 1998, when they first did repairs [in the business district] under a capitol improvement project," Ellis recalls. "At that time [the community was] told about the sweet gums and the sidewalks and overhead-wire problems. We informed them they should be taken out."
There was a strong neighborhood opposition to the move, and the city backed off. However, Ellis said city officials warned Madison Park residents and business owners that things wouldn't change with the trees and repairs would be more expensive. In the intervening 10 years, the Madison Park Community Council opted to prune the sweet gums and patch the sloping and cracked sidewalks, but such efforts are no longer effective.
"Definitely in the last three years asphalt shimming (creating walkable, sloped surfaces with blacktop) wasn't as effective. It's considered a temporary safety repair. It's not a long-term solution," Ellis asserted. She also stressed to the Streetscape Committee that the $80,000 worth of grants and general fund money might not come again.
"We have so much work that needs to be done throughout the city we can no longer afford to do repairs that last 10 years or less," Ellis asserted. "We need to make investments that can last 20 to 40 years. We just have to start doing things smarter and learning from our mistakes. There's no guarantee that there's going to be sustained funds to do the sidewalk repairs every year. Madison Park has these dollars now. It needs to be done right now."
That said, Ellis is hopeful such repair work will continue, especially with the formation of the Streetscape Committee. Before the grant money was awarded for project 2007-155, Ellis told the community the city needed evidence that all affected community members are and will work together. Ellis and her tree and concrete crews desired to have one entity to coordinate their efforts with.
"Madison Park has stepped up to the plate just beautifully in putting together the Streetscape Committee, and it's been a pleasure to work with them," Ellis said. "I know there's always going to be people who don't like change or the direction things are moving, but they should feel confident that they are wellrepresented by the Streetscape Committee in determining where the work gets done and what it ends up looking like." The Streetscape Committee itself echoes Ellis' comment.
"We've bent over backwards to be inclusive and kind," stressed Alice Lanczos, Streetscape Committee member and vice president of the Madison Park Community Council. "This is truly a collaborative and cooperative project, and, so far, congenial." Erik Hansen may be reached via mptimes@nwlink.com.
[[In-content Ad]]