The Road Commission of Kalamazoo County voted to scale back how many trees it removes under a federal road safety program, following recent resident pushback. Staff cautioned that the change won’t spare the corridor generating the most complaints.
The commission’s Safe Streets for All (SS4A) program, funded by a federal grant, originally called for a flat 33-foot “clear zone” — the recoverable roadside area where a driver who leaves the road has room to slow down before striking a tree or other fixed object — applied uniformly across all roads in the program, regardless of speed or traffic volume. Staff have received feedback from residents along affected corridors since the program began marking trees for removal in fall 2024, Managing Director Travis Bartholomew told the board, some supportive of the safety work, others objecting to losing mature trees in front of their homes. But it was more recent, sustained pushback that pushed the board to formalize a revised approach at this meeting, after staff first introduced the change at the board’s last meeting.
At its July 14 meeting, the board formally voted to support a revised approach recommended by staff: calibrating the clear zone to each corridor’s actual speed, traffic volume, and roadside slope instead of one uniform number. As an example, a 55 mph road would now use a 17-foot clear zone from the edge of the travel lane, about 28 feet from the road’s center, rather than the original 33 feet from center applied everywhere. Bartholomew said the change is expected to reduce the program’s total tree removal from an estimated 8,000 trees down to roughly 4,000, though he cautioned that figure includes dead and dying trees along with healthy mature ones, and that exact counts won’t be final until each corridor’s tree survey is complete. The revision doesn’t require a formal amendment to the federal grant and can be applied corridor by corridor as projects move through design.
Separately, the board tabled a draft policy that would have the Road Commission split the cost of replacing removed trees 50/50 with affected property owners, with up to two replacement trees allowed per tree removed on federally funded projects. Commissioners had unresolved questions about how to help residents who can’t afford their half of the cost, which native tree species to prioritize, and how to communicate the program clearly to the public; the item will return at an upcoming meeting with more detail.
Both discussions returned repeatedly to Portage Road, which multiple public commenters described as a heavily residential corridor with several schools nearby, arguing the safety program’s priorities favor moving traffic quickly over neighborhood character. Bartholomew pushed back on the idea that a narrower clear zone would resolve those concerns there specifically: much of the tree removal planned for Portage Road, he said, stems from road-widening and drainage work required for reconstruction, not from the clear-zone standard alone — meaning the trees would come down regardless of which clear-zone width the board adopted.
