Photo: Pruned tree

Photo by Steve Fiske

The street trees pruned by Seattle City Light look even more dramatic in the winter, without foliage. This photo by Steve Fiske was taken at 170th and Meridian.

City Light is proud that they are following national guidelines for pruning. Anecdotally the pruned trees are weakened and prone to disease and usually end up being cut down.

The real problem is the well-intentioned King county street tree program before Shoreline incorporation, that put in all the wrong varieties of trees. Now that they are mature they are interfering with power lines (and causing power outages) and cracking and raising the sidewalks.

We ran a story about the pruning program last year. Read it here.