Rochester’s Most Overgrown Median

I'm not one of those guys who keeps their lawn as well manicured as the greens at the Rochester Golf and Country Club, but even I think it might be time to bust out the lawn mower on this median in northwest Rochester.

That's not a jungle down in Central America, that's the median along Country Road 22 or West Circle Drive, between Country Club Road and 3rd Street Northwest, just down from Harriet Bishop Elementary. I drive this route to and from the Quick Country studios downtown each day.

And, recently, thanks to our warm weather and rain, the weeds in that median have gotten pretty long. Really long. They're almost big enough that they obscure cars coming the other direction.

Even though that median is in the middle of a County State Aid Highway (or 'CSAH,' as the kids say), it's still located in the city of Rochester. And I always find it hypocritical that while the city can order YOU to mow your lawn if they think it gets too long (or they'll do it for you and send you the bill), they apparently have no problem when Olmsted County allows the median on this well-travelled road to get way more overgrown than any lawn I've seen in our neighborhood.

And now that I've noticed how long it is, I can't NOT notice, you know? It's really starting to bug me! Mow it already, will you, Olmsted County?!?

Apparently, I'm not the only one, either. Check out this story from near Green Bay, WI. Even though it's around 7 years old, it tells the story of one citizen who was so bothered by how long the medians had become in his city, that he brought down his OWN tractor and mowed it! (I'm not quite ready to do that-- only because we don't have a riding mower...)