The new plantings are not intended to replace the existing canopy of tall trees along the roadway — at least, not entirely.
"There’s a lot of rumors swirling that we’re going to ax all the trees along there (West Lake Drive) — that we planted new trees because we’re going to remove all the old trees," Detroit Lakes City Engineer Jon Pratt said.
Is there any truth to those rumors?
Not really, he added.
There are currently no plans to cut down trees along West Lake Drive this summer — other than one near the Rossman Avenue public access that was removed due to wind damage, Pratt said.
Detroit Lakes Park Board Chairman Marcus Lacher reiterated that the tree removal was not intentional.
"It was a rotted out tree that fell on its own accord," Lacher said.
While a project to reconstruct West Lake Drive from the Washington Avenue intersection down to Legion Road is in the pipeline, Pratt said, "the earliest we've really looked at doing anything there is 2024."
Even the reconstruction of the portion of West Lake Drive from Legion Road to County-State Aid Highway 6 that was set to begin this summer has been postponed until next spring.
"There are two reasons for that," Pratt said.
One, is that the Minnesota Department of Transportation is looking to conduct a full archaeological study of land affected by the project.
"We were notified of that last fall," Pratt said, but because of the timing, they weren't able to get the study done in time to start construction this summer.
The second reason, he added, is that a dozen or so property owners along the roadway decided to take legal action over some disputed county right-of-way along the corridor.
"The county is still trying to resolve that," Pratt said, by filing a quiet title action.
"Between those two things, it just made it effectively impossible to get that project done this year," he added. "At best we would have been able to start something very, very late this summer, and that’s not ideal. If we have a short, wet fall we could be left with a half-baked cake situation through there. ... It just wasn't a risk we felt we could take."
Because that particular stretch of roadway is such a critical access route, with heavy traffic volumes, it was decided to delay the project until "as early in the spring of next year as we can."
And even when that joint Detroit Lakes-Becker County road project begins, he added, there still haven't been any kind of decisions made as to how many trees will be removed, if any.
"Out of the last planning study that was done for that beach corridor, there were a number of options developed," Pratt said, "and one of the more preferred options was to improve pedestrian access along the beach."
He said one of the concepts that is being considered is to modify the roadway to limit parking to just one side of the road — the side opposite the beach rather than adjacent to it — and develop a multi-use trail on the other side, alongside the public beach. To do that, they might have to move or remove some of the existing trees.
"Any time we do road work, even if we were to leave the road the exact same width, we always run into the risk of disturbing the root systems of the (existing) trees," Pratt said. "It’s kind of a dice roll. Sometimes they’re just fine, and other times they’re not."
In short, he added, "We may lose some trees to the proposed improvements, but we may also end up losing some due to root disturbance, and there are also some trees along there that that are getting older."
So the decision was made to plant some new trees along the corridor this past fall, to give the new plantings some time to grow and develop before work along West Lake Drive begins.
"We're trying to be proactive," Pratt said. "We're going to lose some trees through there just naturally, through attrition, and so planting some additional trees along there is just a good policy and practice. In no way shape or form are we going to go through there and just remove all of the (older) trees along the beach and only be left with the new little trees that we put in. I don’t see that being the case at all."
South Washington project set to begin in mid-July
While West Lake Drive is not going to be getting a face lift this summer, Pratt added, the area of Washington Avenue just north of the curve where it turns into West Lake Drive definitely will.
"We do have a fairly large project planned on South Washington," he said.
The $4.16 million project, which stretches from Willow Street south to West Lake Drive, will also include the Willow Street intersection, the alley just west of Washington Avenue, and a short section of Forest Street between Washington and Lake Avenue.
The project will include a 44-foot-wide roadway, with 12-foot traffic lanes and 10-foot parking lanes. Like the rest of downtown Washington Avenue, there will be 6-foot-wide sidewalks, with colored and stamped concrete used for the 3-foot area behind the curb. In addition, there will be two mini-roundabouts constructed, at both the Willow-Washington intersection (the existing traffic signals will be removed) and the Washington-North Shore Drive intersection.
That project is slated to go out for bids later this month, with construction to start sometime around July 15, Pratt said.
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New tree plantings along West Lake Drive intended to improve, not replace existing canopy - Detroit Lakes Tribune
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