Finding better solutions to sidewalk snow-removal

No one likes to shovel snow off the sidewalk, but it’s more than just tedious—it’s dangerous. In addition to the increased exposure to the cold, which can lead to frostbite, trench foot, and even hypothermia, a recent study links snow-shoveling to a larger chance of heart attack. Still, city snow-removal policies do not cover sidewalks.

A city snow plow hard at work at the Davis St. El during the February 15 snow storm

While the Public Works department has taken great measures to ensuring city streets are clean – even inaugurating a new anti-icing mixture this season – sidewalks are still left up to property owners and landlords. Some argue that policies like this are inefficient and put an unnecessary burden on homeowners, but the city government says that its resources are better used elsewhere.

“All of our staff are working on cleaning streets and parking lots,” said Martha Logan, Community Engagement Manager for the City of Evanston. “It would not be timely if we took our current staff and tried to do private sidewalks.”

But the problem with do-it-yourself policies is that not everyone complies. After the major snowstorm earlier this month, 24 properties received tickets for not shoveling their walks, the average bill being about $190.

Logan says that the City takes many steps to encourage shoveling, though. For example, 196 properties received door hangers that reminded residents to shovel, and 56 properties received notices that gave a 24-hour limit to shovel before a ticket would be issued.

Of course, taking individual responsibility for shoveling sidewalks is not always physically possible. To accommodate these homeowners, the City has a Senior & Disabled Persons Snow Shoveling program where volunteers can sign up to help residents who are unable to shovel. According to Logan, the last snowstorm had 92 people requesting volunteers and 74 people volunteered to help.

Homeowners in other areas have taken the initiative to find a better sidewalk shoveling system. This winter, residents from Ann Arbor teamed up to tackle snowfall together through SnowBuddy. Run completely on donations, SnowBuddy is a nonprofit removes snow from local neighborhoods. The group has received raving reviews for its crowdsourcing approach to removing snow.

While Evanston doesn’t have a group like SnowBuddy (yet), the City has taken more steps to making streets more accessible. Last year in January, the City Council approved a resolution that adopted policies from the National Complete Streets Coalition. The focus of complete streets policies is to make sustainable forms of transportation more accessible by making roads pedestrian- and bike-friendly. Snow isn’t at the forefront of these policies, but the resolution also focuses on the ease of use by the public. And after dealing with Evanston winters for quite some time, we all know that successfully removing snow is inherent in having clean, safe easy-to-use roads.

Help Shape the Redesign of Baker Park

Alderman Melissa Wynne (3rd Ward) is encouraging SE Evanston neighbors to participate in finalizing the redesign of Baker Park (at Keeney Street between Forest and Michigan Avenues) by completing a short online survey conducted by the City’s Public Works Dept. Information is also available by calling Senior Project Manager Stefanie Levine at 847-448-8043. To learn more, you can read the presentation from the city's most recent public meeting about the park redesign.

You can complete the survey here.

Baker park. Image by City of Evanston Public Works.

A Keeper of the Great Lakes

Photo by Clare Ruen

Clare Ruen has always lived where the water was. A true child of the Great Lakes, nothing enamors her like Lake Superior and Lake Michigan’s unchanging blue horizon.

But the world’s water supply is not limitless. And Ruen knows the clock is ticking.

As a dancer and District 65 teacher, Ruen shares her appreciation for the Great Lakes with Evanston public schools. Since 2009, she has spearheaded a collaborative project with the Alliance for the Great Lakes Curriculum—bringing 3rd and 6th graders to field trips and special lessons on understanding the environment, with a focus on water.

“I have just some strong connection with the clear clean water,” Ruen said. “It’s cold; its ability to smash and destroy things is amazing. My brother and I, after a year away, we’d go back to Lake Superior and notice which rocks had been thrown around.”

This year, Ruen’s educational program expanded from five schools to the entire district’s 13 schools when she was awarded a coastal management grant from the Department of National Resources. Currently, the budget of the entire project is close to $90,000. More than 42 teachers and about 1,500 students total will participate in the program.

The series of field trips actively engages students with nature. The kids participate in tasks such as cleaning up a beach, touring a water treatment facility, and working with watershed models. Through the curriculum’s assignments, students learn how to collect data and monitor aspects of sites, such as litter control.

Ruen also teaches kids a form of dance that expresses water in motion, which she calls “lake dance.”

“I’m not a politician, not a lawyer, not a scientist,” Ruen said. “So the thing that seemed available was teaching kids through movement. It was a logical deduction, and they have a lot of fun with it.”

The lyrical, interpretive movement of Ruen’s signature lake dance evokes the natural flow of rivers and waves. Ruen, who performed these dances long before she went into schools, says such poetic movement puts a creative twist on education.

“I know it’s a relief to get out of their seats,” Ruen said. “I get them outside as often as possible. There are kinesthetic learners who don’t get it until they act it out.”

Ruen first became enraptured with the environment after reading The Great Lakes Water Wars, a book detailing water rights and conservation of freshwater lakes in the Midwest.

“That book was really the catalyzing moment,” Ruen said. “My hope with this program is to have children grow up appreciating the Great Lakes and have some sense of global significance so they can write policy to sustain them.”

Since finishing that book, she has become hyper-aware of the precarious situation of the world’s resources. Living in the water-rich town of Evanston, she never thought of the world’s scarcity of usable water. Now, she considers every wasted drop of storm water and leaking faucet. She has no room to be what she considers “oblivious to the peril of the future.”

“I guess I just feel a strong kinship with the parts of creation that seem to thrive in spite of humans,” Ruen said. “Almost everything has been touched, and all of those wild things that continue on in spite of us, I feel connected to.”

Uprooting and rooting: Restoring Evanston’s urban forest

Fall color near the Grosse Point Lighthouse. Image by Tom Gill.

The battle to revive Evanston’s tree population continues. As plagues attack Evanston’s trees, city officials find themselves enmeshed in an effort to revitalize the urban forests that line Evanston’s streets and fill its public parks.

An ongoing depletion of trees has plagued Evanston for more than a decade now. Since then, workers have been hacking away at infected or dead trees while city officials struggle to stay afloat with planting as many trees as it has been taking down.

“It’s not an ideal situation at all,” said assistant director of Public Works/Forestry Paul D’Agostino. “We have always been replanting trees, but the amount of trees we started losing jumped way up.”

Each year, Evanston cuts down 700 trees—but only budgets enough to plant 500 new trees. Thus, a gap has formed. The new trees are also mostly 2-inch diameter trees, as larger ones are significantly more expensive. And with neighboring communities facing similar threats, prices of mature trees have spiked.

The result is an obvious reduction in overall tree cover in Evanston.

In public property, there are about 34,000 trees in the city, with 830 of them only stumps, according to D’Agostino. As thousands of trees have been chopped down and replaced in the past decade, the total inventory of trees present in Evanston public property has decreased since the beginning of the project by about 500. It is what D’Agostino said he considers for now “not losing much ground,” but still “getting behind.”

The average cost to get a tree in the ground is about $375, according to D’Agostino. He noted that prior to the sudden tree loss, usually a tree could be replaced in less than a year. Now, it takes two years for that site to emerge at the top of the city’s planting list.

“My limit is that I don’t have enough money to buy more trees,” D’Agostino said.

The trouble intensified in the summer of 2006, when the Emerald Ash Borer beetle was confirmed present in a portion of Evanston’s ash tree population. Although the infected areas were quarantined, in two years the infestation had spread all over Evanston, leading the city to increase its planting budget to keep up with the losses.

Since then, the public ash tree population has reduced from about 4,200 to 1,000. With no known defense against the Emerald Ash Borer existing, the ash population will likely die out.

Many of these ash trees are large in diameter, like most of the other trees being cut down. Even if the city could keep up with replanting where ashes have been cut down, there still will be a significant period of sparse tree coverage in many neighborhoods.

Ash trees also had made up 13 percent of the tree population before the infestation. Many other Evanston neighborhoods were also planted with only one kind of tree, leaving those streets vulnerable to a similar menace.

The city has since changed its policy, stating that it will ensure each species doesn’t make up more than 10 percent of the total tree population.

A similar plague occurred around 2004, when the Dutch Elm Disease fungus infected elm trees in Evanston. While the city has since vaccinated against the threat with a 97% effectiveness rate, there are still many mature elm trees that will not survive.

D’Agostino said the city is looking at breeds that can tolerate urban conditions well, including air pollution and salt spray. Some successful breeds so far include different types of oaks, the Kentucky coffee tree and hybrid elms.

A year ago, the city initiated fundraising for this cause, using methods such as crowd funding, donor letters and fundraising at events. The endeavor, called the I Heart Evanston Trees campaign, raised short of $25,000 and secured an extra 100 trees for the city. D’Agostino said due to the program’s success, it was restarted for 2014-2015 with a goal of $25,000 by next spring.

“There’s still a lot more that can be done,” D’Agostino said during a meeting with SEA. “Last year, we were closer to keeping up with removals. We will catch up when we remove most of the ash trees.”

EvPLA seeks support to keep Harley Clarke mansion in public ownership

Harley Clarke Mansion. Photo by Flickr user Teemu008

Do you think it's important that the Harley Clarke mansion remains in public hands? If so, our friends at the Evanston Parks and Lakefront Alliance say now is the time to make sure your Alderman, Mayor and City Manager know it.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is currently negotiating with the City to purchase the Harley Clarke mansion to house the IDNR Coastal Management public education program and offices. This use is consistent with the goals of the Evanston Lakefront Master Plan, unanimously passed by the City Council in 2008.

We think this is a great way to keep this beautiful property in public ownership, while providing a path to restore and maintain it for years to come.

But what happens if IDNR decides to sell the property someday? We'd like to ensure that the property remains in public hands, and we think this should be part of the terms of its sale.

If you agree, please contact your city officials. You can look up your ward and contact your alderman here.

Your support makes a huge difference.