‘Weedians:’ More City Of Boondoggle

The proposal to excavate, irrigate and landscape the medians on Pacific Highway South is one of the most ludicrous and wasteful schemes to come out of City Hall in recent months.

That highway is a medium speed arterial through an industrial area meant for efficient movement of vehicles and cargo, not a grandiose entry to a wannabe classy city.

For example, the medians recently built in Shoreline and Renton are prime examples of why those medians should be paved over and not vegetated at all. Before the plantings have even established good roots, the weeds have taken hold, trash is caught in the shrubbery and they are in fact “weedians” by definition and about as attractive as a nose bugger.

Covering them with pavement precludes the accretion of trash, needs zero irrigation or weeding and does the job medians are designed to do: separate traffic.

In addition to the negative aesthetics, any maintenance (too seldom done) of the “weedians” puts workers at very high risk of injury or death, impedes workday traffic with safety vehicles on the roadway, and irrigation lines get broken by vehicle encroachment onto the areas.

In sum, they are an incredible waste of scarce funds that should be put to positive improvement of streets and infrastructure, not spent on a prettification project dreamed up by architects and others looking to suck up more of the public funds.

I’ve seen many attractive, low-cost and low-maintenance treatments of these median areas in travels around the country, but not a single one of them included miles of trash-filled weed beds created on the lame excuse of landscaping for beautification. Aesthetics matter but clean, neat, tidy and cost-effective trump malfeasance by design every time.

– Paul Nickelson