Median Strips

Essentially, median strips exist to divide busy streets and slow down traffic. Years ago these were mostly found in wealthy areas and were as much for beautification as for automobile control. Bolton Hill, where this median strip is located on Mount Royal Avenue, was built mostly between 1850-1900 and was one of the city’s richer neighborhoods. Some streets in this area have medians between the street for residents that goes directly in front of their homes and a larger main street and these acts as a buffer for noise and other traffic issues. Mount Royal Avenue is a main street that leads from north to south and the JFX has a major exit just north of this median; so speedy cars are a problem. Before this was built, though, Bolton Hill did not have as many traffic problems as other neighborhoods because there was no direct route north as Druid Hill Park is in the way. Mount Royal also paralleled the Jones Falls valley, so if one wanted to go east in those days they had to drive until they found a bridge. Thus, this median’s main function in those days was probably beautification.

Now we are mostly familiar with medians in the middle of large highways that are nowhere near cities. In the early days of driving, highways with planted medians were called parkways and the plantings in the strips helped relieve driver’s eyes from the oncoming headlights of cars coming from the other direction. After World War II plantings were used to relieve the concrete austerity of the new superhighways that were springing up in America. In recent years medians have appeared back in cities and suburban areas as a way to add green space and to beautify the community. Plants in median strips suffer indignities not encountered by average garden plants. They are hit by large vehicles, suffer lack of water, and in winter are sprinkled with road salt. There is also less soil to flourish in for trees confined to an island. A construction project is underway opposite the trees in this photo and you can see where people drive over the corners of the grass. And, if you were ever wondering if it is true that moss grows on the north side of trees you can see here that indeed it does.

Resources

Island and Median Strip Planting by William Flemer

Bolton Hill History by Fred Shocken