For decades, Cape Coral has argued with itself about trees ― which can stay and which should go.
Now, it’s the end of days for more than 30 shady live oaks along Cape Coral Parkway.
Part of a roughly $2.3 million six-laning project, the land will be leveled, then paved in order to “add capacity and smooth traffic flow on Cape Coral Parkway … by resurfacing and restriping to six lanes between Triton Court East and just west of Cape Coral Street/SE 15th Avenue. The project will expand Cape Coral Parkway East to six continuous lanes between Coronado Parkway and Del Prado Boulevard.”
“I’ve been gritting my teeth at the orange X’s painted on the tree trunks for the last few weeks now,” Cape Coral conservation advocate Jason Pim wrote in an email, the day before the demolition roared to life May 20.
City officials say the trees were a hazard to the public and infrastructure.
But had the city planned properly, says longtime tree advocate Russ Ringland, this could have been avoided. Instead, it’s become a classic example of what he calls Cape Coral’s chronic willingness to “rip out any trees that present a problem.”
When it’s over, 33 trees weighing more than 300 tons will be ground up, broken down and returning to the earth, says Joshua Tree arborist Ryan Ishley. “Typically within a year, it’s going to turn back into soil. So leaves are nitrogen and wood is carbon. And those two together creates soil.”
‘These trees were doomed as soon as they were planted’
To some residents, the trees are a casualty of decades of short-sighted design in a city long criticized for favoring palms, pavement and easy traffic flow over a cool canopy.
“We have known these trees were doomed as soon as they were planted,” says Ringland.
Ringland, the Cape’s Johhny Appleseed of shade trees, has planted thousand over the years and hopes to convert the kind of resident “(who) raked oak leaves in his backyard for 30 years up in Pennsylvania. The last thing he wants to do down here is rake oak leaves. Hence ugly palm trees.”
A city spokeswoman didn’t say how long ago they’d been planted, but the parkway’s live oaks eventually got too close to traffic lanes to meet Florida Department of Transportation’s offset requirements.
In some places they were less than two feet behind the curb, says spokeswoman Melissa Mickey. Plus, “They were originally planted in spaces too confined … As the trees have grown, their expanding roots have caused sidewalk uplift, creating pedestrian trip hazards and impacting nearby infrastructure.”
Wrong tree, wrong place, is how Ishley characterizes it.
Beautiful as live oaks are, they’re big-boned trees that need room to spread out in their 350-year lifespan, he says. Cramming them into four-foot planter boxes “was a poor decision, obviously” ― one that could have been avoided had a certified arborist been consulted.
The project has drawn social media ire, with residents calling it “sad” and “ridiculous.”
That’s why the city would do well, Ringland says, to pay more attention to its urban canopy ― or lack thereof.
“Since the city doesn’t value trees, they are not included as part of the infrastructure,” he says. “What specifically is the city doing to offset the loss of tree canopy? Downtown needs more trees not less.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Mature Cape Coral shade trees cut for road-widening, sparking debate
Reporting by Amy Bennett Williams, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
