Comments About Damage To Median Planting Strip On Boulevard, 43rd Avenue NE

Damage to Boulevard median

Following the Laurelhurst Blog post about damage to the median on the Boulevard, 43rd Avenue NE, we received these comments:

This type of damage happens a lot with trucks like Amazon Fresh, FedEx, UPS, random Contractor, school bus or a random car that can not make the turn. This latest was a school bus.

Vehicles can't make the turn due to cars parking on the corner, usually Children's Hospital employees, who then walk to work across the street. 

Every time someone drives over the median I fill in the hole and work to clean it up. If we want to fix it we need to add drainage for this grass and add no parking signs.   

I have lived on the Boulevard for 40 years and this type of damage has happened very frequently over the many ears.  Large trucks turning the corner off NE 45th Street must dodge parked cars and have no where else to go on that narrow street. 

Care of the median is very inconsistent.  Once the city abandoned the care of the medians things went downhill quickly.  Plants died for lack of irrigation and the median became overgrown.  The City finally agreed to once again irrigate the median periodically.  And now some of us are paying to have the median mowed.  However the beds are filled with weeds and trash; northern beds are the worst.  For a while I paid my gardeners to periodically weed and clean up some of those beds but grew weary of shouldering that burden alone.  I think it is a shame that Laurelhurst residents are not banding together to keep our main entrance attractive. 

Andrea Early (andrea.early79@gmail.com) is the wonderful person who gathers contributions for the mowing of the median by a gardener.  She did one year have enough money left over to have the beds weeded but that was a rare exception.  All the funding is strictly voluntary. I believe to date she has only involved those living on the Boulevard and its side streets.  Since this has traditionally been the main entrance to Laurelhurst I would like to see that list expanded to include all residents.  After all, the entire community is asked to support the care of Mary Gates Boulevard. 

Regarding the damage to the median on 43rd Avenue NE at NE 45th Street, this is the result of Children's employees and construction staff parking in front of our house.  We see numerous big delivery trucks drive up on the median--FedEx, UPS, school buses, big dump trucks, you name it - because it's a tight squeeze for them to get through if cars are parked there. Sadly, this is nothing new. Perhaps you can request that Children's have their landscape crew repair and maintain it.

The Laurelhurst Community Club (LCC) said that the Boulevard along 43^rd Avenue NE is SDOT property. 

"Neighbors have banded together to do the mowing and maintenance and neighbors on the southern most segment have been most active.  Many neighbors on the northern portion are older and have not been as active or organized, " LCC said.

Jim Sawyer, Hospital Director of Security said that staff and contractors are not allowed to  park on neighborhood streets and to call Hospital Security to report a violator at 987-2000.