City receives grant to plant trees along West Third Street

Spring is just around the corner, which means one thing: Trees will bloom.

In Bloomington, however, road construction on West Third Street, in between Landmark Avenue and Franklin Road, has eliminated about 20 trees from the roadside.

To remedy the trees’ uprooting, the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department was granted $9,375 from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to plant 150 trees along West Third Street, where construction from about 10 years ago is still in the works.

DNR Community and Urban Forestry Coordinator Pam Louks said Bloomington, out of 16 communities throughout the state funded by the Put the Trees Back grant, originally requested $12,375 that Bloomington would match. After Bloomington was denied the initial amount, the city was able to match the $9,375.

“We don’t have enough money to go around,” Louks said. “We only had $121,203 to award and we received over 37 applications requesting over $400,000 in funds.”

Applications for the grant were due Oct. 10 last year, and in November and December the communities were reviewed. The DNR ranked Bloomington high because of its promised cash match, a management plan and a tree board inventory.

Plans for the project are set to start in March and must be finished by June 30, 2012, Louks said.

The allocation from the grant, along with the Parks and Recreation Department’s match, will be spent on purchasing and planting trees, said Urban Forester at the Parks and Recreation Department Lee Huss.

He said the proposed species of tree, which may include maple and oak, are not particularly expensive.

“We have found a source for them here in Indiana, so I don’t think that’ll be a big problem,” he said.

And the trees won’t be hard to notice.

“We’re talking trees that are of significant size,” Louks said. “Generally they are 150 to 350 dollars apiece. So those costs are not excessive at all. They’re right in line with what generally the Midwest is spending on purchase of planting of trees.”

During the project, stop-and-go lights were replaced and Adams Street was curved to meet West Third Street.

Joyce Williams at the Project Engineering Division for the City of Bloomington said phase two of the West Third Street project will extend the road from Landmark Avenue off of Third, continue to Franklin Road and will finally extend the four lanes to Highway 37. The completion date is set for July 21.

Williams said complaints have been reported from time to time but that the division works to address them as they come.

“Probably the primary complaint is about pot holes, and so we speak to the contractor and have them fill those in,” she said. “We get calls from both residents and drivers, depending on the issues.”

Funds for the West Third Street project and grant money from Put the Trees Back are derived from federal funds. The Parks and Recreation Department came up with its match to the grant through the Bloomington Tree Fund, which is deduced from taxes, according to bloomington.in.gov.

The West Third Street widening project is also locally funded through gasoline taxes.