Tree clearing on Interstate ROW

[robbones]

Lately I'm seeing a lot of tree clearing along the Interstates. Is this a state doing this on their own, or is there a new FHWA regulation requiring this?

[cjk374]

Louisiana has been busy lately also clearing the ROW.  But they aren't clearing fenceline-to-fenceline.  Nor are they clearing the entire area inside on-ramps and off-ramps...just a certain distance from the edge of the road.

[froggie]

States are doing it on their own, although there are FHWA regulations on clear zones on Interstates.  Some states are interpreting it differently, though...it's in part why Mississippi has cleared out A LOT of their median trees in the past 10 years.

[hbelkins]

I hate wooded medians. Great places for wildlife such as deer to hide before they dart out in front of your vehicle while you're driving highway speeds.

[Brandon]

I hate wooded medians. Great places for wildlife such as deer to hide before they dart out in front of your vehicle while you're driving highway speeds.

I'm the opposite on this.  I love wooded medians.  They block the headlights of oncoming vehicles and make it easier to see.

[hbelkins]

I hate wooded medians. Great places for wildlife such as deer to hide before they dart out in front of your vehicle while you're driving highway speeds.

I'm the opposite on this.  I love wooded medians.  They block the headlights of oncoming vehicles and make it easier to see.

They also make great places for cops to hide, which is another reason I dislike them.

[Pete from Boston]

Lots of big storms in the Northeast in recent years (3 or so tropical storms since 2011, plus that October snowstorm) each brought down a lot of lumber.  I figure they're getting ahead of the issue.  Lousy for erosion, though.

[jakeroot]

I hate wooded medians. Great places for wildlife such as deer to hide before they dart out in front of your vehicle while you're driving highway speeds.

I'm the opposite on this.  I love wooded medians.  They block the headlights of oncoming vehicles and make it easier to see.

They also make great places for cops to hide, which is another reason I dislike them.

Besides the occasional wildlife camping, I too hate the wooded medians because of cops. The worst I've ever experienced is the RCMP sitting in a wooded median along the TCH just outside Agassiz, BC (about an hour east of Vancouver). They usually don't hide, to be fair, but when they do, they get you (the speed limit is 100, but traffic moves, in my experience, close to 135).

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I hate wooded medians. Great places for wildlife such as deer to hide before they dart out in front of your vehicle while you're driving highway speeds.

I'm the opposite on this.  I love wooded medians.  They block the headlights of oncoming vehicles and make it easier to see.

It also allows an opportunity to use your brights at night. I love wooded medians because it gives the freeway a more nature-like feel to it. I-35 in Minnesota has three or four sections of them.

[cpzilliacus]

I have no problem with wooded medians, and if the median is nice and wide, as it is along sections of the Garden State Parkway, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and sections of I-95 and I-64 in Virginia, and some other freeways. 

But trees falling down and blocking the travel lanes are not a  good thing, so thinning and removing large trees near the pavement is a good idea.

The National Park Service has gotten pretty aggressive in recent years at pruning and in many cases felling trees near its Washington, D.C. area parkways. 

Maryland and Virginia are have also spent a lot more on tree work near primary-network highways since the storms of the past 10 or 15 years.

Maybe the biggest tree removal project I have seen was along I-87 (New York State Thruway) south of the Berkshire Spur, where  many were being felled - almost looked like the NYSTA was preparing for a widening (IMO that is needed), but it was just tree maintenance.

[Laura]

Wooded medians are actually safer because drivers are more leery about cops, so they don't speed as much. I certainly know that I drive much faster when the median is bald because I can see the cops from a mile away.


iPhone

[roadman]

"Clearing and thinning", as it's called in Massachusetts, is often done to improve visibility of ground-mounted signs.  This is the principal reason that MassDOT now places major guide signs on Interstates and freeways overhead.  However, there will always be a need to continue this activity in areas where there are a lot of service and other supplemental signs.

[hbelkins]

I actually like grass medians with cable or guardrail barriers, or narrow medians with concrete barriers, best of all. In Kentucky, cops have a nasty habit of cutting through unobstructed grass medians to go after drivers they clock going faster than an arbitrary numerical limit. They can't do that if the median has a barrier unless you're unfortunate enough to meet the radar-running cop at a U-turn spot.