Trees On Harford Road Median Near Beltway To Be Replaced

If you're a Parkville or Carney resident, you've probably noticed that a bunch of trees that formerly stood in the median of Harford Road as it crosses over the Beltway are gone.

Reader and Parkville-Overlea Patch Facebook fan Cynthia Pyle certainly did. She wrote to Patch asking about the removal of trees and the timeline for their replacedment.

Taking the trees out was by design, said State Highway Administration spokesman Charlie Gischlar.

The trees, which were removed on Nov. 16, were pulled because many of them had died or were struck by vehicles, he said.

"A lot of them were dead and past their warranty phase," Gischlar said. He explained that the nursery under contract with the state agency would be obligated to replace any trees which died within a year.

The removal of the trees was just as well, Gischlar said, because they could have caused issues for drivers.

"From time to time we’ll revamp our guidelines," he said. "Those trees, ultimately, could have grown up if they would have survived, and maybe created a sight-distance issue."

Gischlar could not provide an exact timeline for replacement of trees in the area, but said that planting was to be part of two projects going on in the area.

"We're doing a stormwater management pond on the one side of Harford Road right now to help move the stormwater around and filter it," Gischlar said. "There's this ramp [reconfiguration] project that's going to be coming up at some point ... included in both of those is some low-maintenance shrubs and tree re-forestation."

New plants—both trees and shrubs, Gischlar said, are unlikely to be installed on the median but rather in grassy shoulder areas.

"That will be incorporated, putting the trees in," Gischlar said. "They'll be installed on the grassy shoulder side, not on top of the median where they kept getting hit by snowplows and vehicles."