On
9 March and
12 March, I wrote about our neighborhood working together to
get our local ARCO gas station to be easier to live near. Since then,
the station was closed for construction. It opened again just a few
days ago.
The neighborhood’s concerns were: too much light, noise, traffic,
and gang tagging (spray painting and scratching of symbols and letters).
Since the station reopened, the light pollution is much reduced because
of the removal of the big lights facing toward our homes from the canopy.
Thankfully, noise and traffic are also down (but those will probably
increase as customers notice that the station is open again).
As part of the station upgrade, they killed three large old stone pine trees.
The pines had provided a good buffer for the light and noise of the
gas station. ARCO planted three new much smaller trees, two of them in the
same place as the trees that were chopped down. We hope the new trees will
grow big fast!
Photos of the reconstruction in April 2009:
Tree Removal Sign
|
Pine Tree Half Gone
|
equipment removed
|
Last Photo of 3 Old Stone Pines
|
Cut Up Tree
|
3 small new trees planted
|
Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson
KatysBlog 
They are cutting down lots of stone pines near our house in Palo Alto, too. All the pines along the center of San Antonio Road are already gone, and they are busy removing the ones around a play area at Mitchell Park.
The pines on San Antonio have been tearing up the pavement for years, and the ones in Mitchell park have started dropping limbs, including one that injured someone.
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=12232
I guess they were considered a good city tree fifty years ago when these were all planted. Now we know better.