November 18

Traffic circle in need of an adoptive gardener

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If you’re on the one- to two-year waiting list to get a plot at the Maple Leaf Community Garden, the Seattle Department of Transportation has got a project that just might whet your appetite for gardening and do the neighborhood a favor.

At Wednesday night’s Maple Leaf Community Council Executive Board meeting, President Marc Phillips said he’d recently learned that the traffic circle at the intersection of Northeast 95th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast is in need of some tender gardening care.

Unlike most of the traffic circles in the neighborhood, this one doesn’t have a registered volunteer and it’s become so overgrown that the city received a complaint about it over the summer.

Since then city workers twice have sent out fliers in the immediate area in search of a volunteer, but no one has yet come forth. A letter from SDOT’s Christina Legazpi states:

We do not have the funds to provide landscaping to neglected or abandoned landscape traffic circles.

Normally (and we try to avoid it), if we are unable to find a volunteer, we would pave over it. Once paved over, it is hard to change a paved traffic circle into a landscape traffic circle.

Would you like to adopt this traffic circle to help prevent it from being paved over? If so, let Joshua Erickson with SDOT know at 206-684-5008 or Joshua.Erickson@seattle.gov.

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  1. Thanks for the question Tom – the complaint we received was regarding sight line issues. We require anything planted in a traffic circle to have a mature height of no more than 24″. Typically what I see happen with these older traffic circles is someone either takes over without contacting us, or plants something too large but keeps it pruned low. Once they leave, the plants they put in take over and obstruct sight lines. This is particularly hazardous for pedestrians crossing near the intersection.

    While the euonymous that is planted in this traffic circle looks quite nice, it is unfortunately not in an appropriate place. There are many other plants that have a mature height of less than 24″ that are better suited for these landscapes.

    Thanks again for the question – I’m glad to help answer any others you might have!

  2. Is it because you cannot see through it or because it is overgrown? It actually has nicer plants growing in it than alot of traffic circles. Paving over it would be a shame. It would look even nicer if someone didn’t run over it recently on the left hand side.

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