Who Are These People?
The Texas DOT keeps building roads – and the roads keep being inadequate to handle the traffic. The answer to the question regarding how that problem can be solved may be losing out to the “aesthetic police.”
The Texas Transportation Department set aside $11.5 million for aesthetics on the North Tarrant Express. A task force was created with officials from six cities along the route — Bedford, Euless, Fort Worth, Haltom City, Hurst and North Richland Hills — as well as Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and Tarrant County. (I suggest you read this article in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Sunday, March 20, 2011, by Gordon Dickson)
The task force wants the “North Tarrant Express” to be – shall we say – made “beautiful” with stained concrete, murals, decorative fencing and walls, lighting and landscaping, and bridges with canopied walkways.
Perhaps they are thinking something like the Southwest Parkway/Chisholm Trail, a 28-mile toll road scheduled to be built this year. It will go from I-30 in west Fort Worth to Cleburne, and Fort Worth officials desperately wanted the road to relieve traffic. So the city and the North Texas Tollway Authority agreed to spend tens of millions more than originally budgeted for design and make the northernmost four miles of the toll road a scenic parkway with a 50-mph speed limit. (Ibid.)
I don’t know about you, but when I get on a freeway – my primary interest is in seeing “the sights.” Cut back a lane, get a well-know artist to paint a mural. Make those bridges shorter (by narrowing the freeway) but make some of them suspension bridges like the Golden Gate. I like that bridge. And get someone to plant some trees along the right-of-way. . .oh, wait! We just cut down all the trees along the right-0f-way. Oh well, just paint some trees on the concrete. It will look almost the same, right? And if the price goes up, I will be glad to chip in some more of my hard-earned bucks. (I guess most folks think the money for roadways comes from the DOT’s garage sales and lemonade stands.)
I’m glad the highway to Heaven is scenic (all God’s beautiful children) and swift (life flys as one gets older). I hear the streets are paved with gold, and the walls are jasper and pearl. I’d wager the mansions have some beautiful trees – you know, only God can make a tree.