Trees being replaced along Butler’s Main Street
Trees don’t grow overnight, but the ones on Butler’s Main Street will be gone overnight Tuesday and Wednesday.
Butler Mayor Bob Dandoy said the trees’ replacement is part of a yearslong streetscape project that also involved lighting and traffic signal replacement on Main Street. The project is being conducted in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which paid for the traffic signal replacements on Main Street and is paying for the tree removal and replacement.
More than a dozen trees will be removed and replaced.
“We started all this several years ago with the lighting done on Main Street,” Dandoy said. “It's something a lot of people have had a lot of energy for.”
John Evans, the city’s building code official, said the removal will be over relatively quickly, but the planting of the new trees will take some time.
“It should take them three to four weeks,” Evans said. “They're not going to start digging to plant new trees for a while.”
The six species the city has to choose from are hornbeam, maidenhair, honey locust, Armstrong maple, yellowwood and ivory silk, which will be chosen based on what is available on the market, Evans said.
Evans said the city works with its Shade Tree Commission regarding tree selection. “If we have a mixture of different species it would be a more vibrant choice,” he said
According to Evans, the city received a state grant for $279,336 for the project, and the city is paying $116,673, bringing the total cost of the streetscape project to $396,009. PennDOT paid around $2.4 million for the traffic signal replacement, and the city paid $22,000 to have electrical outlets placed on the new poles for events, Dandoy said.
Dandoy also said the project will hopefully grant a good return on investment.
“The philosophy behind it is it's not just to make street look pretty,” Dandoy said. “An attractive downtown will attract business, bring more jobs to the city, bring more revenue into the city itself to be able to pay for services and infrastructure we already have.”
