Bye-bye, trees

And away they go...

Some of the live oak trees that lined Kirby Drive were removed [Monday] night as part of a controversial reconstruction project between Westheimer and Richmond.

The oaks, as well as crape myrtles, were taken down on the west side of Kirby from Richmond to Kipling. Trash bins placed along that stretch were full of the destroyed trees early today.

"We knew it would be done at night," Barry Ward, executive director of the nonprofit group Trees for Houston, said [Tuesday] morning.

"That is fairly typical," he said. "There is some justification when you do that, so it doesn't disrupt as much traffic. But, you'd also be naive to think it wasn't done so they wouldn't get so much public scrutiny."

[...]

"You don't want to do it during peak traffic times, and you don't want to interfere with retail businesses during the non-peak times during the day," said Travis Younkin, the district's capital projects director. "This just makes the most sense."

Overnight on Tuesday, contractors removed the oak trees and crape myrtles on the west side of Kirby from Richmond to Kipling. Trash bins placed along that stretch were full of the destroyed trees. The trees likely will be turned into mulch.

I took Kirby to get to work Tuesday, partly because I was curious to see if any removal work had been done. I saw a bunch of trees with orange construction mesh around them, but didn't spot the empty spaces where the cuttings had taken place. It's probably more obvious today. It's sad to see it happen, and I do think this could have been done a different way, but what's done is done. I just hope that Upper Kirby is right about what it will all look like afterward.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 31, 2008 to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles