370 new trees will be planted at the Bear Creek Parkway Project

Earlier posts on this blog show bulldozing and deforestation of the Saturday Market area and Heron Rookery forest attributed to the Bear Creek Parkway Ext. and Stormwater Treatment Wet Pond. Ms. Lisa Singer, Project Manager of the Bear Creek Parkway project told me the city will be replacing the lost trees with 370 new trees! This is generous. Planting 370 trees is way beyond code requirements for this project. For example, the seven urban Landmark trees cut down in front of the Saturday Market will be replaced with 36 trees. Code requires only 21 new trees. Thank you, Ms. Singer for restoring our green treed Gateway.

A Landmark tree is greater than 30 inches in diameter measured at breast height. When a Landmark tree is removed code requires replacement by 3 trees. Depending on weather conditions and species, a young tree sapling planted by the city will take about 70-90 years to grow into Landmark status. Thus, I will be 127 years old and my 16 year old daughter will be 96 years old before the new trees planted in Saturday Market area grow back to Landmark size.

Losing our downtown Landmark trees will have long-lasting impacts to the old look and feel of downtown Redmond. The new look and feel should be greener despite the new Parkway. Planner Lisa Singer says "It will be a beautiful amenity, as well as functional of course, once the project is completed. We’ll have many new pedestrian and bike connections and loop trails!" Lisa provided the following tree data for the project:

There are actually a total of 370 new trees proposed for the Bear Creek Parkway and Stormwater Treatment Facility project. Breakdown of new tree planting locations are as follows:

• 42 trees will be planted in the Saturday Market area. To clarify, this includes the existing roadway surface of Bear Creek Parkway in the area between Redmond Town Center and Leary Way. 7 of the 13 trees removed in the Saturday Market area were Landmark Trees.
• The removals in the Saturday Market area were necessary to accommodate the alignment change in Bear Creek Parkway and the pavement from the existing roadway alignment will be removed and restored with vegetation.
• 94 deciduous trees will be planted in new planter strips and landscaped medians of Bear Creek Parkway.
• 145 trees will be planted in the area along the northern border of the Heron Rookery between Leary Way and 159th Place NE. 25 trees were removed to build the Leary Heron rookery trail.
• 75 trees will be planted in the vicinity of the new regional Water Quality Facility.
  108 of the new trees will be planted in planter strips and landscaped medians.