SDOT: Maintenance for LCW Medians
Earlier this year LCFF convened a meeting with SDOT and local business owners Annie Stocker (Two Dog Yoga), Joel Calvert (All State Insurance), LC Greenway’s Monica Sweet and LC’s own Chuck Dickey to discuss the condition of the Lake City Way medians and to advocate for them to get on the maintenance schedule. While it took some time and some follow up, the medians are getting some much needed attention.
Thank you so much to Darren Morgan with SDOT for being our point person on this effort. I asked Darren to provide a little bit about the current work and what we can expect going forward. Darren offered the following;
“LCW medians are getting some TLC after a whirlwind Summer of 2017! Gary Hren, our landscape supervisor, and I are working closely together to really nail down tactics for tough arterial median locations this Fall. We are emphasizing timing and getting staffing numbers optimized to execute litter pick up, pruning, mulching and herbicide applications as efficiently as possible. Gary and I visited the medians again on Friday and actually walked one of them to take a close look at the plant conditions, mulch levels and weed populations. We agreed that the next step was to finish the pruning on the north median and use the break in weather to spot spray Autumn’s push of weed growth between desirable plants. (This happened yesterday) We also agreed that in a few weeks (after herbicide is absorbed by weeds) we will need to return to mulch areas where the desirable plant material has been lost. Longer term, we are now seriously considering bringing in new plant material to help outcompete the weeds in the bare areas (north and south of the older median which are relatively weed free due to soil compaction and tree competition). This can help improve aesthetics and further minimize herbicide use. We have not yet decided on species or quantities, but we would like to select something that is already doing well in the medians, such as heather and sword fern- but we are considering others. This last step is not yet fully planned, but I can say that we are committed to the follow up mulching by the end of November. Also, I have given direction to remove all un-permitted temporary signage in the medians when we are onsite performing maintenance.”
