2 Freeway: Landscape Project? Do We Dare Hope For Trees?

Photo: Gary Vlahakis, September 14, 2016.  CalTrans installed a solar panel to power their irrigation project they've been working below the log cabins on Corralitas Drive.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Photo: Gary Vlahakis, August 30, 2016.  Neighbors were wondering why CalTrans was digging loudly around the one Coast Live Oak Tree on the Corralitas side of the 2 Freeway for the past few weeks.  Vlahakis noticed that is was an irrigation project. 

Neighbors hope it means CalTrans will be planting trees on the 2 Freeway.  I wouldn't hold my breath.  Back in the early 1990s, CalTrans cut down all but 3 trees north/east of Rosebud on the Corralitas side of the 2 Freeway for an earlier "irrigation project."  In the 1990s, pleas to replace the trees to CalTrans fell on deaf ears. 

It was only after neighbors asked then Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa for help that CalTrans returned to plant some small shrubs instead of trees. What did we get?  Before Villaraigosa left the Assembly, we got mostly Peruvian Oleander, a pathetic yellow-flowering bush that never got much taller than 4'. Discussions with a CalTrans rep (shortly after the  Silver Lake Fire) indicated that's what they'd be planting again.