Photo by Kira B.
On Saturday night, another parked car fell victim to falling branches on Funston near Clement. It’s the second incident in as many weeks.
Reader Kira B. shot these photos of the large eucalyptus branch that fell and damaged the windshield, roof and front end of a truck.
A homeless man named Myron, who often camps under the tree, told Kira he was able to get out of the way quickly when he heard the branch crashing overhead.
Ok city of San Francisco, what is the plan for maintaining the trees in the greenbelt? It’s only a matter of time before a pedestrian gets hurt.
Sarah B.
Photo by Kira B.
Photo by Kira B.
Sutro Elementary is right across the street. This street is covered with cars picking up and dropping off children, we can’t have this happening.
A few months ago a tree on the Funston green belt between Fultkn and Cabrillo fell onto Park Presidio and hit a passing tourist bus. No injuries, but this seems to be common. There has been some tree removal and maintenance on the 14th Ave side…
I work nearby at the Presidio and I can tell you that the City has had recently (like within the last couple months) teams of tree cutters work the entire Richmond District Park Presidio Green Belt. It cause plenty of traffic trouble when they did it, and my impression was the main thing they were doing was clearing out places where the homeless might try harbor. So, the issue here can’t be that the City is negligent, insofar as they’ve had people doing this. the answer must rather be “they were too focused on booting the homeless to worry about actually trimming tall trees”. my 2 cents
Ok, that’s just plain scary….
The City has been taking out trees along the 14th Ave greenbelt, but it has been haphazard at best. I think they are working from an older tree survey that was performed a number of years ago and are working to take out the older, more precarious trees. What I would like to see is some selective trimming of dead branches and other hazards that would also help preserve some of the larger, specimen trees.
Wow, look at it! I hope they solve it soon.
Yikes, we were parked nearby Saturday night.
Glad no one was hurt.
Any chance Supervisor Mar’s office can nudge DPW to address this issue?!
Thankfully no one was injured but these incidents are all warning signs…and that poor F-150 truck…
Maybe the tree elves are going on a rampage. If anyone can calm them down I’m sure it’s Supervisor Mar. Perhaps he can reason with them.
More practically, what can we do to get these trees dealt with properly? It is really only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed. Myron was really lucky!
Some history: Once Proposition 13 passed and came into effect the City reneged on past services of sidewalk and tree maintenance, particularly those trees that were promised City maintenance from the predecessor of Friends of the Urban Forest. As licensed Arborists retired in ensuing years from Rec & Park, these positions were eliminated, leaving mostly Groundskeepers performing any park maintenance as the Gardener ranks were also significantly reduced through attrition. The only reason the 14th Avenue side received maintenance was a decade long effort by Park Presidio Neighbor Group. That work was not done by City employees.
Well said, 4thGen and thanks for those reminders!
I am glad Myron is ok. My office will check on the ongoing DPW plans and the Boulevard Neighbors and Park Presidio neighborhood groups and try to get back to folks here.
In 2009 the City did take down dangerous trees along the green belt but it seems like another analysis is necessary given the number of fallen branches recently. Perhaps the super storms and drought have had a horrible impact on existing trees.
Sadly I have no magical powers over the tree elves.
Eric
Why do these trees hate pick up trucks so much? The first one hits a black pickup and now a blue one. This is an outrage. 🙂
Where there are eucalyptus trees, there’ll be falling branches. They snap easily & on windy days there’s broken limbs of eucalyptus all over the parks
I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these tress were feeling the ill effects of the drought. I imagine they’re more stressed than usual.
I was able to talk with Myron, the homeless man that lives under the tree. He smiled and told me the branch missed him. I am still waiting for the Department of Public Works to respond to my requests for their plans.
Eric
Let’s all be careful here that we focus on tree *maintenance*, not tree *removal*. There’s no reason we can’t have strong, tall, healthy trees here (as we’ve had for decades) – other than the fact that such trees in an urban enviroment need to be maintained. (And yes, whoever planted eucalyptus here was ill-advised; they always shed branches and debris!)
As a Funston resident, I’m concerned that this is going to morph into a “cut down the trees” campaign, reducing the greenway to a few sorry clumps of bushes – which would have *huge* negative impacts on the Inner Richmond, essentially exposing all of the noise and glare from the quasi-freeway that is Park Presidio.
I’m happy that Myron wasn’t hurt… but I’m perplexed as to why he is allowed to continue to live on the sidewalk next to the greenbelt …. as not only is that not allowed, but he also leaves trash nearby to blow around the street & neighborhood. We have so many programs in this city for our homeless folks, it would be great to see them help Myron.
I’ve seen Official Bros (city or otherwise) cutting from the ground on the greenbelt again this week. They are still just taking out ground cover to thwart the homeless (as seen here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/270216046369104809/ ), not doing any actual maintenance on the tall trees dropping limbs. I agree it will be a small step for some bureaucrat to just cut em all down to solve some richy richer’s problem. Already if you are watching the clearance of plants against the homeless has made the greenbelt a much thinner Median Strip deal and much less a parkland greenbelt– if the homes on Funston / 14th wanted a better view smell sound of freeway traffic, they sure got it/ are getting it