Omaha daily bee., 1908-10-25
MAKING CITY OF BoULEvARDs.
Winnipeg Has One Hundred Miles of
Parking, Set with Trees, 10
Its Credit.

In addition to paving her streets Winnl-
peg now has more than 100 miles Of park
ing between curbs and sidewalks, an aver
age width Of fifteen feet, and all the park
ing set with trees. The streets thus parked
are called boulevards.
Winnipeg has found that It costs only
about 25 cents a front foot to plant the
parking strips and about 8 cents a front
foot to maintain them. a ridiculously low
! figure compared with the great benefit re-
ceived from the Improvement. The tree
planting costs about 4 cents a front foot.
]. H. Blackwood, secretary of the Park
board Of this city, recently said:
our first boulevard was laid in 1896.
Since then our boulevard system has grown
till the property benefited by this improve
ment has a frontage of nearly 100 miles.
The cost approxlmates $4,000. which in
cludes the cost Of the boulevards under
construction this season.
1.-THE system employed Is the simplest
and the most impartial to the property
owners that I have found anywhere. When
a street is paved, IL the property owners
do not petition for the boulevard. the coun-
ell may take the initiative and advertise
for thirty days their intention to carry
out such Improvement. If in that time no
adverse petition to the work is received a
bylaw In put through council placing the
boulevarding and tree planting OF the street
under the control OF the Public Parks
board.
our board having received authority to
do the work, calls for tenders. If the ten
ders are not satisfactory the work is done
by day labor. All boulevard seeding and
all tree planting. up to the present time
have been done by day labor. Seeding
boulevards is confined to the streets hav,
ing the least traffic and where there IL
the least danger of children getting out tC
play upon them.
The cost OF boulevarding varies accord,
ing to the condition Of the street. Tn,
amount of filling and grading that hal
been done and the quality Of the soil hav,
to be considered. The average cost OF oul
boulevards last year was "a cents and tn,
year previous 1t was 80 cents.
THE decreased cost was chiefly owing
TO the average width of the boulevards
being much less than those constructed
the year previous. Our boulevards run
from four feet to twenty-eight feet in
width (these are exceptions). The av-
erage width is fifteen feet. as most OF
our streets are sixty-six feet wide. TWEEN.
ty-five cents per foot is a reasonable
charge for a fifteen-foot boulevard.
"Ine cost OF CONSTRUCTION Is assessed
against the property benefited and is
spread over a term OF seven years. Tht
cost OF tree planting is about 4 cePts pei
front foot. and is Charged up In the same
way as boulevards except that the
charges are collectable in one year.
Separate accounts are kept for eacf
street. Al the end OF the year a sch edult
is made out showing the properties bene-
fitted and the rate struck. The schedule
then becomes the main body OF the by.
law giving authority for levying the tas
for Improvement The amounts are theT
entered up in the collectors roll unde
the appropriate heading and collected the
same as the general tax.
"Boulevards extend over approximately
14O streets.
THE amount charged against the indi
vidual streets Is arrived at by taking
the area in square feet OF al the streets
The amount charged against any stree.
will be in the same ratio that the are,
Of the street is to the total area of al
= b~oulevards. In this way the propert!
owner has only to pay for the actua
: area Of the boulevard.
lust as the area is regulated by tn,
l width, so is the cost regulated.
4 The cost OF maintenance Is pu
, through In the same way as that 0