The trees, which line the curb side of Green Lane (Scotland Rd-bound), will be planted at the grounds of a government quarters about 50 metres away.
The trees will be planted around two tennis courts, surrounded by a circus access road to the quarters.
Penang Island City Council (MBPP) traffic engineer Zainuddin Mohamad Shariff said the new site for the trees was found to be compatible, giving the trees an 80 percent chance of survival.
He said the relocation will begin late June and would take about one month to complete.
Zainuddin added the transplanting of 25- to 45-year-old trees will be supervised by experts from the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia and consultant arborists hired by the council.
“It will take one night for each tree to be removed and it will will be done during non-peak hours.
“It is not going to be a rush job, we will take our time to carefully replant the tree,” he said in a site visit with reporters today.
Meanwhile, council landscape architect Azizul Fahmi Muhamad said the new location was chosen so that there would be less stress to the replanted trees.
From the initial 33 trees to be relocated, they have managed to reduce that number to 16, following calls by environmental groups to keep the trees.
“Most of the trees involved in the relocation are Angsana and yellow flame trees,” Azizul said.
According to the council, the RM7.85 million road widening project, under package 5B, will be completed by May 2017.
The project will see the widening of the Batu Lanchang Lane-Green Lane junction (Scotland Rd bound) to the KFC outlet near the Jalan Ayer Itam exit. An extra lane would be created on the existing two-lane road after the widening.
Besides road widening, new lighting, heavy duty drainage system and a new pedestrian walkway would be built as well.
The widening of Green Lane, the island’s busiest thoroughfare, was hotly debated by environment interest groups and also by elected representatives at the recent state assembly.
Stay current - Follow FMT on WhatsApp, Google news and Telegram