The leafy look of Princeton’s main thoroughfare is about to change. Thanks to a disease known as bacterial leaf scorch (BLS), at least seven of the oak trees that tower over the campus side of Nassau Street will be taken down during the next several weeks.

A few of the trees have already had their limbs and leaves removed and a big orange “X” painted onto their trunks. “They look like totem poles,” said Lorraine Konopka, Princeton’s municipal arborist. “They will need a crane to bring down what’s left.”

“They” are workers from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), under whose jurisdiction the trees fall because Nassau Street (Route 27) is a state road. Ms. Konopka contacted the DOT several weeks ago after a large branch from an oak tree across from the Panera restaurant fell down. “That jump-started them to look at the town,” she said. “I told them it’s a really busy place and we have trees in all stages of conditions. They looked, and marked several for removal because of advanced decay or too much deadwood.”

At a meeting of Princeton’s Shade Tree Commission last week, Ms. Konopka told commissioners that research is being done to help determine how to best replant the downtown once the ailing trees are removed. The municipality is hoping to get assistance from the state.

“I’m in touch with the state and they are interested in having a commitment from us that we’ll take care of the trees,” she said after the meeting. “They are taking the trees down, which is saving us thousands of dollars in labor costs. So we hope to continue working with them to replace and maintain, because we want to have a shaded downtown. This is not the shore.”

According to a spokesman for the NJDOT, a tree replacement plan is being developed in conjunction with the municipality as part of the “Good Neighbor Landscape” program. Daniel Triana of the NJDOT’s Communications Office said there is currently an unrelated resurfacing construction program underway in the area. “The removal of trees is not part of the contract, but if ‘dead’ trees are identified within the project limits and pose a hazard or obstruction, a contractor may sometimes remove them,” he wrote in an email.

There is no cure for BLS, and affected trees cannot be treated, Ms. Konopka said. Once the bacteria gets inside the tree, its vessels get clogged. “The trees try to wall it off,” she said. “And with this kind of weather, it’s brutal. The trees downtown have next to no water and soil. This is when you see them start to collapse.”

Ms. Konopka has noticed at least eight empty tree pits in the downtown area. Once the oak trees are removed, she hopes to begin filling in those vacant spaces. “We’re actually facing an opportunity to replant downtown,” she said. “We certainly want to preserve as many healthy, mature trees as we can. But the problem is that we have a lot of the same kinds of trees.”

The two trees on Nassau Street marked with an “X” are pin oaks, probably at least 45 to 50 years old. “We’ll find out when we cut them in half, when we look at the rings,” Ms. Konopka said.

BLS is sometimes called marginal leaf burn and describes the death of tissue along the edge of the leaf. It develops when sufficient water does not reach the leaf margin’s cells. The condition has been a problem in New Jersey for several years, especially in the southern part of the state.

“It primarily attacks oak trees,” Ms. Konopka said. “What happens is insects transmit it from tree to tree. It’s grim. It’s depressing. Because we’ve got some stunning, beautiful trees here. And on top of that, the red oak is the state tree of New Jersey.”