It is perhaps ironic to note that efforts to improve the aesthetic quality of the highway are nothing new. In 1907, the New York Legislature created the Bronx River Commission and charged it with protecting the Bronx River from encroaching development and attendant pollution. To achieve this end, broad strips of land were acquired on both sides of the river and a four-lane divided roadway connecting public parks in Northern New York City with city reservoirs north of town was built within this greenbelt. This parkway, originally intended to be a recreational road, enjoyed the luxury of a wide right-of-way which insulated it from the city’s other roads and allowed grade-level access to be eliminated. Furthermore, the roadway was intentionally curved to follow the undulations of the river and the surrounding topography without requiring excessive cuts and fills, the entire length of the parkway was landscaped to blend in with the surrounding parkland and prevent erosion, and a high standard of architectural design was required of all bridges and other built structures. The parkway, which opened to traffic in 1923, was immediately popular and led to the construction of more parkways in and around the New York City area. Later parkways were constructed as suburban commuter routes instead of as recreational drives, but the same regard for environment and aesthetics was maintained (FHWA 1976: 358-359). A Federal Highway Administration publication describes the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, a gracefully-designed and carefully-landscaped parkway constructed in the 1930s:

Traveling along the 61-km (38-mile) route today, it’s easy to see how all the elements of the roadway fit together to achieve this parkway concept. The setting, with its vegetation, appears natural. The pavement width is minimal; opposing traffic is separated by a grass median and most shoulders are covered with grass. Despite the population growth that has developed around the parkway, and in many cases directly up to the parkway, the density of trees and the carefully planned topography hide this development from view. One of the most striking features of the parkway is its bridges. There are 72 in all (35 of which carry intersecting crossroads over the parkway), and each is designed differently. Even the materials used vary considerably, from stone to concrete to steel, yet they all work together, because they are all designed within the same scale. They are all approximately the same length and height, which gives the appearance that they all belong together, despite the fact that some are arch construction and some are pier and beam (FHWA 1997: 12-13).

A pair of stone bridges crossing over the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. (FHWA graphics)

However, as automobile ownership within the United States grew and the need for roadways increased, the novelty of the parkway design began to wear off. In fact, with the exception of a few major roadways such as the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway in Washington DC (which was designed by the Bureau of Public Roads, was completed in 1932 and was the first such project to have a full-time landscape architect), some New Deal - era demonstration projects, and a handful of corridors in other cities, the popularity of the parkway concept did not spread outside of New York City. First, they were considerably more expensive to construct than a typical two-lane highway. Secondly, parkways were oftentimes designed as a recreational, rather than utilitarian, roadways; this meant lower design speeds and a prohibition of truck traffic – newer superhighways needed to be built to accommodate higher speeds as well as the growing trucking industry (FHWA 1976: 369; McKeown 1998: 9). As the novelty of the parkway was replaced by the need for high-speed, high-volume automobile travel, the aesthetic, environmental and operational values of the parkway design were by and large ignored by indifferent and technically-minded highway engineers. Oftentimes, the only concession to a highway’s pleasing appearance was the planting of trees within the right-of-way (FHWA 1976: 367).

In 1938, Congress added a provision in the Federal-Aid Highway Act which allowed construction funds to be used to cover costs of roadside and landscape development. While some states took advantage of this flexibility, others did not; funding for highway beautification came from amounts otherwise earmarked for badly-needed highway construction and the highway bill did not provide any separate source of funding specifically set aside for highway beautification (FHWA 1976: 368). The Interstate Highway Act of 1956, similarly, did not set aside any funds specifically for roadside beautification; as massive and as economically vital as this project was, highway engineers of the postwar era generally failed to understand the impact their new creations would have on anything other than traffic. The sociological, psychological and aesthetic implications of carving these massive concrete sinews through America’s cities and countryside were not considered.

One thing that is especially important to understand in the context of this report is the fact that highways in cities were, for obvious reasons having to do with construction through a built-up urban area as opposed to a pristine countryside, treated much differently than highways in rural areas. In the country, highway engineers could afford to buy up large amounts of land to accommodate graceful curves or scenic vistas. This was simply not possible in cities. The high cost of right-of-way acquisition generally prohibited the creation of buffer zones between highway and neighborhood. Bridges, overpasses, skyways and interchanges that were simply unnecessary in the country were required to move traffic around heavily-populated cities. Furthermore, the construction of a freeway through the countryside did not affect nearly the same number of people as did construction through the city. For this reason, the aesthetic condition of the rural highway is not nearly as much an issue as is the condition the urban freeway. Notes John Robinson: “Despite cases of penny-pinching design, graceless structures, and disregard of contours to save a few fractions of a mile, the Interstate in the rural areas is generally well designed and pleasant. In the urban areas it too often becomes just another massive freeway” (Robinson 1971: 67).

It is also interesting to note that, during the 30s, 40s and 50s, highway structures that are today seen as ugly and disruptive were then seen as an actually aesthetically-desirable solution to problem of increasingly congested inner cities. In 1929, the Chicago Motor Club claimed that elevated highways would “vastly rejuvenate” run-down Chicago slums (Foster 1981: 109). Ten years later, Chicago planners promoted the concept of elevated highways through the city, arguing that “segregating large masses of motor vehicles, with their exhaust gases and noises, from surrounding property would not only cost no more in the long run, but [might] actually be a benefit to the area traversed.” California Department of Public Works Director Frank W. Clark noted during the a ceremony marking the grand opening of Los Angeles’s Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1940 that freeways were preferable to conventional highways because, by virtue of being limited-access and grade-separated, they would prevent “string towns” of service stations, hot dog stands, motels and junkyards from developing. As ridiculous and as naïve as these ideas may seem today, they were serious arguments behind the construction of urban freeways both immediately preceding and following the Second World War (Foster 1981: 164-165).

By the mid-1960s the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was well underway. And the destruction wrought by the freeway as well as its disastrous aesthetic qualities had become apparent. Cities were being divided, neighborhoods were being destroyed, and concrete behemoths were forever changing the urban fabric of a city. One writer notes that the postwar freeways in Los Angeles “disrupted the landscape with their elevated sameness, contributing neither amenity nor identifiable landmarks. They took their appalling aesthetic from elevated railways” (McLaughlin). Despite this, many highway engineers refused to see the damage and blight their creations were causing. As Federal Highway Administrator Lowell Birdwell writes:

The Bureau (of Public Roads) and the federal government itself find it hard to understand why this multibillion-dollar aid program has aroused so much public antipathy in spite of efficient and progressive administration and superior engineering performance. So do the state highway departments, actually the dominant agents in the construction of highways... They are baffled and angered by the new and growing image of the freeway as a despoiler. They feel the critics of the freeways overlook the immense and vital services provided (FHWA 1968: 10-11).

Whether the highway engineers liked it or not, however, by the 1960s a shift in attitudes towards the urban freeway was apparent. In several cities, “freeway revolts” aimed a stopping the construction of highways through urban areas occurred, the most famous of these being the one in San Francisco which in 1959 halted further construction of the Embarcadero Freeway (Patton 1986: 104). This shift was also reflected by several publications critical of the urban freeway which appeared during this time, such as Lawrence Halprin’s Freeways (1966), John Robinson’s Highways and our Environment (1971), and Helen Leavitt’s vitriolic Superhighway-Superhoax (1971).

This shift in attitudes did not go completely unnoticed by the Federal government. The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 for the first time set aside federal funds to be used specifically for programs which limited outdoor advertising, removed or screened “offensive” uses such as junkyards along highways, and scenic enhancements (FHWA 1976: 369). The act was heavily promoted by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, who also encouraged and later founded programs to plant wildflowers along highway rights of way. Other manifestations of this shift, at least at the federal level, were the publication of The Freeway in the City, a 1968 Federal Highway Administration document which explored the issue of the freeway in the urban area. It made a list of 16 recommendations, including “adopt the systems concept of an interdisciplinary team approach to urban freeway planning on every level” or “encourage a high level of visual quality in every proposed freeway” (FHWA 1968: 18-20). It also created design guidelines which focused on better integrating the freeway with its surrounding environment. Also in 1968, the Federal Highway Administration began an annual competition known as the Annual Awards for the Highway and the Environment. It included categories such as “outstanding highway in its rural setting and environment,” “outstanding highway in its urban setting and environment,” and “outstanding example of landscape treatment along roadsides and interchanges.” This competition recognized and rewarded highway designs which showed sensitivity to their surroundings or were aesthetically pleasing (FHWA 1984).

However, over forty years after the first major “freeway revolts,” and over 30 years after the Federal Highway Administration began to seriously consider the benefits of highway aesthetics, most of our nation’s urban freeways remain unsightly and unpleasant.

Current Trends and Obstacles

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) put more emphasis on diminishing the impact of the freeway. ISTEA’s Surface Transportation Program, for example, set aside ten percent, or $3.6 billion of its allocation, to “enhancements” that increase the environmental, historic or aesthetic value of a project. In 1991, the Federal Government also created the National Scenic Byways program, to protect and beautify roadways noted for their scenic, natural, historic, cultural, archaeological or recreational quality (Associated Press 1998).

The Transportation Enhancements program, which has been continued under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) signed into law in 1998 (FHWA: 1999), is seen by many as a way for architects, landscape architects, urban designers and artists to participate in a highway planning and design process that traditionally was the exclusive domain of civil engineers. The Transportation Enhancements program, which is described by the Federal Highway Administration as being designed “to strengthen the cultural, aesthetic and environmental aspects of the Nation’s intermodal transportation system,” not only provides for the implementation of projects such as highway landscaping and beautification but also provides for projects such as pollution mitigation, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and historic restoration of transportation facilities (FHWA 1999). As Karen-Lee Ryan of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy notes, “At long last, landscape architects are having a meaningful effect in the transportation field. This, of course, is quite a feat in a field historically dominated by highway engineers whose training emphasizes moving cars and other vehicles not people” (Gunts 1995: 48).

Increasingly, landscape architects and other design professionals are becoming involved in the design of freeways. above: freeway interchange in Phoenix, Arizona. (photo by author)	Landscaping and greenery can compliment the sculptural qualites of freeway interchanges. above: the interchange between US 290 and Loop 360 in Austin, Texas. (photo by author)

These new programs, and the overall shift in thinking about freeway design that has been fostered by ISTEA and TEA-21, might be having a desired effect. Increasingly, architectural and multidisciplinary firms have been involved in the design of new freeways. Vollmer Associates, a New-York-based engineering, landscape architecture and planning firm, lists “highway aesthetics” among its list of services. They have been involved in projects such as the Central Artery (“Big Dig”) project in Boston, the redesign of Route 9A along the west side of Manhattan, and the design of Route 21 in Passaic, New Jersey (Vollmer Associates 1999). DMJM, an architecture firm headquartered in Los Angeles, has assisted in the design of some of Phoenix’s aesthetically-notable freeways (DMJM 1999). And several elements of the Central Expressway in Dallas, such as its carefully-articulated retaining walls, were designed by Helmuth, Obata & Kassbaum (HOK), an architectural firm better known for its work designing sports facilities (TAI 1999). All of these projects are detailed later in this report.

This new attitude towards freeway design that has been fostered by ISTEA, however, has not been completely pervasive. At late as 1995, at least four states did not even allow landscape architects to serve as primary contractors for enhancement projects. Furthermore, state DOTs do not seem to be in any rush to fund enhancement projects which improve the experience of the freeway. By mid-1994, less than $110 million - a paltry 9 percent - of ISTEA’s $3.56 billion enhancements budget had been spent. Some state DOTs have shown outright animosity towards implementing the enhancements programs. This may be the result of two things: first, the traditional engineering focus of state departments of transportation which sees little value in the aesthetic improvement of structures whose purpose is to move cars, and second, the fact that enhancement projects are oftentimes so small compared to traditional highway programs as to seem fiscally irrelevant. While new highways can cost millions of dollars per mile to construct, the nationwide average for an ISTEA enhancement project award in 1995 was only about $300,000. Thus, state DOTs, given constraints of personnel and paperwork, seem to put enhancement projects at a low priority (Gunts 1995: 49).

Resistance comes not only from highway departments but also from the ranks of elected officials. A governor or legislator working on a state budget, for example, might view funds for aesthetic enhancements as frivolous or unnecessary in the face of more pressing transportation concerns and attempt to cut them from the budget or direct the funds to programs deemed more important. In 1995, former Arizona governor Fife Symington cut landscaping and other aesthetic enhancements out of the Phoenix, Arizona Regional Freeway System in an attempt to have the highways built quicker. That placed the burden for funding of aesthetic enhancements on the individual cities through which the projects of the regional freeway system passed (Crissey 1999: 1).

Resistance to enhancement projects also comes from certain special interest groups. “Enhancement money is simply money that isn’t being invested in safer roads and bridges,” says William D. Fay, president of the American Highway Users Alliance, which has been lobbying to cut or eliminate enhancement programs from the federal highway budget. “We haven’t been expending the money properly we are taking from highway users” (Zagaroli 1997). Clearly, there are a lot of people who see no importance in highway enhancement programs.

The overall climate regarding the issue of highway aesthetics has indeed been steadily improving over the past several years. However, there are still many obstacles that must be overcome before a truly new way of thinking about the freeway in the urban environment becomes widespread. Much work is left to be done.

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