Strategies and techniques which attempt to make the freeway as least disruptive to the existing urban fabric as possible or otherwise make for a better driving experience can be classified into four general categories: aesthetic enhancements, impact mitigation, integration of uses, and freeway removal. It should be noted that most freeway enhancement projects do not fall under the exclusive domain of a single technique; a freeway project that employs carefully-landscaped berms and artfully-designed sound walls is an example of both aesthetic enhancement and impact mitigation, because the freeway is made to look nicer at the same time the negative externalities of the freeway are being lessened. The following chapter details these four general categories and discusses the pros, cons and controversies of each.

Aesthetic Enhancements

Aesthetic enhancements are projects which seek to “soften the edges” of the freeway or otherwise improve its visual quality, making it more pleasant for motorist and community alike. These include billboard removal, landscaping and contouring, the use of color or artistic designs along freeway structures, the sculptural treatment of freeway bridges and structures itself, and the emplacement of public art. Improvements of this character oftentimes attempt to beautify the freewayscape or make the freeway less anonymous or monotonous by giving it a distinctive identity.

Perhaps the simplest form of aesthetic improvement is the removal of unsightly and distracting elements such as billboards, utility poles or certain types of land uses from the freeway corridor. Of these, the subject of billboards gets the most attention. It is a contentious debate, pitting those concerned with visual blight or the safety issues caused by billboards against outdoor advertisers, property-rights advocates and free-speech advocates.

Several organizations are leading the fight against billboard blight. The American Society of Landscape Architects, for example, has adopted a policy which seeks to minimize the negative effects of billboards along highways by encouraging moratoriums on construction of new billboards along Interstates and other Federal-Aid highways, prohibiting the cutting or trimming of roadside vegetation specifically to make billboards more visible, and removing nonconforming billboards through amortization strategies (ASLA 1999). The Sierra Club, likewise, has encouraged the replacement of billboards with blue, state-managed “logo signs” that have become increasingly in use along the nation’s Interstates (Sierra Club 1999).

The aforementioned Highway Beautification Act was a big step forward in the fight against aesthetic blight caused by billboards. A 1985 study by the General Accounting Office found that roughly 587,000 signs had been removed from the nation’s roadsides between the passage of the act in 1965 and 1983 (ASLA 1999). However, billboards still litter the nation’s highways, both urban and rural. Scenic America, a Washington, DC - based environmental group, charged in April of 1997 that the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was “broken” and needed to be strengthened. They pointed to a Congressional Research Service report stating that, in spite of all the signs removed since the Highway Beautification Act was signed, there were still 150,000 more billboards along federally-funded highways than there were when the Act was passed in 1965. Scenic America president Meg Maguire derided billboards as “sky trash” and “litter on a stick” and noted that “a drive down an American highway is like a drive through the Yellow Pages” (Harlan 1997; Greenwire 1997). Interestingly enough, the Scenic America report closely echoes a Sierra Club charge that “The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 has not fulfilled its promise or the intent of Congress. Thousands of illegal billboards remain on the highways because the Federal Highway Administration has failed to enforce the statute” made about fifteen years earlier (Sierra Club 1999).

There have been some sympathetic ears on Capitol Hill. Georgia US Representative John Lewis, who along with Vermont senator James Jeffords in 1997 proposed legislation to strengthen the Act by freezing the number of billboards along federal-aid highways and levying a 15% tax on revenue collected from billboards, noted that “billboards destroy the scenic beauty of our countryside and the architectural beauty of our inner cities” (Harlan 1997).

Battles over billboards also occur at the state level. In 1998, Scenic America walked out of a beautification project in Georgia after the Georgia Department of Transportation decided to allow more billboards along state scenic highways. This occurred as the result of a successful lobbying effort by the billboard industry to exempt areas along scenic byways near commercial or industrial sites from a rule prohibiting new billboards. Scenic America vice president Frank Vespe charged, “the Georgia DOT has put the billboard industry’s interests above those of local communities and the traveling public.” Vernon Lee, the executive director of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia, countered by saying that his industry did not want to put billboards in scenic, rural or rustic areas. “Scenic America doesn’t want our industry anywhere in America,” He charged. The controversy is clear: one of the National Scenic Byway programs’s goals is to attract tourists, and the outdoor advertising industry wants those tourists’ eyeballs (Associated Press 1998).

Billboard controversies, of course, also find their way into local politics. Houston was a city once known as the “Billboard Capital of the World.” The same developer-friendly, lazziez-faire land use laws that made Houston the largest city in the country without zoning also allowed outdoor advertisers to erect billboards everywhere and with impunity, and freewayscapes were cluttered. In 1980, however, the city’s first billboard ordinance was passed which limited existing signage and prohibited the erection of signage along new freeway corridors. Since then, roughly 150 miles of new freeways in Houston, including Texas 288, the Sam Houston Tollway and the Hardy Toll Road, are billboard-free (Rains & Tinsley 1997). Despite attempts such as these to limit billboards, however, signage is still in abundance along most of the city’s highways. A loophole in the city ordinance allows existing billboards to simply be relocated when widening forces its removal; because buying out a billboard in the Houston area can cost upwards of a half-million dollars, TXDoT generally elects to relocate. In one recent example, a billboard was moved from its location on I-45 north when construction there commenced to a spot along the West Loop in the Bellaire/Meyerland area which had previously been billboard-free. Area residents were understandably upset; Meyerland Plaza shopping center developer Ed Wulfe called it “an affront to the people who live in Meyerland and Bellaire.” Michael Grow, the South Texas manager for Outdoor Systems Advertising, noted that “advertisers like to go where there’s money” and that “in the hot Meyerland area, there are people with spendable income” (Feldstein 1998). In a city where a single billboard can command as much as $12,000 per month from advertisers, the debate regarding billboards is as much about economics as it is about aesthetics (Hassell 1998).

Part of the problem, ironically, might be because of the enhancement programs set forth by ISTEA and continued by TEA-21. Federal money that states used to be able to use for billboard removal are now part of a larger pot of transportation money that can be used for other projects. As such, many states are spending enhancements money for projects other than billboard removal. TXDoT spokesman Randall Dillard noted, “we have chosen to put our resources into our transportation system instead of buying signs (Harlan 1997).

Perhaps the most recognizable aspect of highway beautification is landscaping. The recently-published FHWA manual Flexibility in Highway Design notes, for example, that landscape design “is an important element in the design of all highway facilities and should be considered early in the process, so that it is in keeping with the character and theme of the highway environment” (FHWA 1997: 90). As was noted previously, historical attempts to improve the appearance of the highway have generally revolved around the planting of trees and shrubbery. Bureau of Public Roads Chief Thomas McDonald noted in a 1930 memorandum that” [p]lanting shade trees along highways is a necessary complement to the surfacing of roadways...” (FHWA 1976: 637).

above: Colorful desert-themed landscaping along a freeway in Phoenix, Arizona. (photo by author)	above: A landscaped buffer along Loop 1 in Austin, Texas separates the freeway from adjacent neighborhoods. (photo by author)

A little bit of green, after all, can go a long way towards “softening the edges” of a concrete freeway. The planting of vegetation can make freeways more visually appealing, create a visual “screen” between the freeway and its surroundings, preserve the “look” of a specific urban area, and prevent soil erosion, especially along embankments. Likewise, earthworks such as berms and retaining walls can control erosion and screen the freeway from surrounding communities while at the same time be visually appealing. Greenery can also have a soothing effect on the motorist; “Living matter – whether saguaro cactuses and desert flowers in Arizona or lush green growth in the East – exerts a tremendous effect on travelers, as evidenced by the continuing pleasure people derive from the country’s surviving if antiquated pre-Second World War parkways” (Langdon 1997: 26-35).

As important as landscaping might be to the aesthetic of the freeway, it oftentimes is seen as being auxiliary to the construction of the highway itself and falls victim to budget constraints as monies available for highway construction continue to shrink. In 1970, Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation) had a ratio of one maintenance worker for every 12 acres landscaped highway. In 1990, that number fell to one worker for every 30 acres. By 1994, Caltrans had limited its landscaping budget to $23,000 per acre — half of what a similarly-sized residential landscape project might cost. Fortunately, Caltrans has adapted. To conserve precious water as well as money, it has replaced water-intensive plants along California freeways with drought-resistant plants such as acacia or myoporum parviflium and hardy low-water trees such as deodar cedar and eucalyptus. Although Caltrans uses native species wherever possible, sometimes non-native plants are used because they better withstand the pollution and heat of the roadside environment than their non-native counterparts. Some conservationists are critical of the use of non-native spices, however (Slater 1994).

Sometimes states put a great deal of money into landscaping but do not put money into landscape maintenance. This creates difficult situations, such as in Kentucky, where a drought during the summer of 1999 adversely affected much of the landscaping along freeways and highways in the state. Although the planting of trees and shrubs has been a major priority for the State of Kentucky – $1.5 million alone was spent on landscaping an 11-mile stretch of I-65 through Louisville – very little funding has been set aside for landscape maintenance and watering. The summer drought had an adverse effect on much of the state’s highway greenery, and state highway officials could do little about it. “We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature a lot of times,” says Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokeswoman Robin Jenkins. This is partly because any attempt to water the trees and shrubs along Kentucky’s 27,000 miles of highways and roadways would be extremely expensive, if not impossible (Nord 1999: 1A).

Safety issues must be considered during landscaping, as well. For example, while the FHWA notes that trees can assist motorists by providing a guiding visual “edge” to the roadway, they also account for roughly 25 percent of all fatal single-vehicle, fixed-object collisions. Roughly 3,000 people are killed every year by automobile-tree collisions (FHWA 1997: 91). Oftentimes, the need for safety and the desire for beauty clash. A section of State Highway 163 that passes through Balboa Park in San Diego, California has become the potential scene of one such dispute: city and state officials are concerned about the high accident rate – about twice the state average – along this stretch of freeway and a searching for ways to improve its safety, while local residents want to ensure that the many sycamore, oak and palm trees that line this section of roadway are protected. A 1966 proposal to replace the tree-lined, parklike median along this section of freeway with one made of concrete was met with such fierce opposition that it was abandoned. More recently, civic groups have become concerned about an environmental study for San Diego’s proposed downtown baseball stadium that suggested that the freeway be widened to improve safety and increase capacity. Those same groups are also wary of a recent call by Caltrans for the creation of an advisory committee to study the freeway’s safety problem. “It sounds good that they want to put a committee together, but it depends on who’s on the committee,” a member of one civic group concerned with the future of Balboa Park said. “There should be public review of anything that’s done to a scenic highway” (Arner 1999: B1).

While roadside beautification efforts such as landscaping and billboard removal are extremely helpful tools in making the freeway more pleasant and less disruptive, the majority of the freeway’s aesthetic shortcomings are a result of the physical structure of the roadway itself. Too often, the urban freeway becomes merely a structure for safely carrying cars at high rates of speed; the monumental and sculptural qualities of the freeway structure, that structure’s effect on the surrounding community, and the subjective experience of motion and sequence though the city oftentimes seem to be either addressed only as an afterthought or ignored altogether.

The vertical and horizontal alignment of a freeway has a great effect on the type of presence it has relative to its surroundings. Ideally, highways should be gracefully curved to fit existing topography, provide scenic vistas and minimize disruptions to surrounding communities rather than be brutally cut across the landscape or through neighborhoods. Freeways running through urban areas should follow existing street grid patterns, instead of cutting across them, so as to be as least disruptive as possible. Dividing a freeway into two separate roadbeds helps to break up its massiveness and allows more flexibility in alignment (FHWA 1968: 50-51). According to a 1980 US Department of Transportation publication:

A general rule for designers is to achieve a “flowing” line, with a smooth and natural appearance in the land, and a sensuous, rhythmic continuity for the driver. This effect results from following the natural contours of the land, using graceful and gradual horizontal and vertical transitions, and relating the alinement to permanent features such as rivers or mountains (FHWA 1997: 64).

However, what is ideal in terms of the placement of the freeway can sometimes be at odds with what is practical or possible in terms of actual freeway construction. Obstacles such as right-of-way acquisition costs, construction costs, limitations of engineering technology, safety issues, construction timetables and, of particular importance, an uninnovative, singular-minded “that’s the way we’ve always done it” attitude on the part of the highway designer can have a huge, and generally aesthetically negative, outcome on the final layout of a section of freeway. Oftentimes it is simply cheaper, easier and quicker to cut a straight line across the landscape rather than build a freeway that is integrated with its surroundings. The nation’s older urban freeways, which were designed by engineers whose only directives were to satisfy basic engineering design criteria and keep right-of-way acquisition costs and actual construction costs to a minimum, are a good example.

Just as important as the alignment of the freeway through an urban area is the physical appearance of the freeway structure. Open Road author Phil Patton notes that, as roadbuilding technologies have improved over the years, “[t]he design of bridges on the Interstates has seen an evolution toward lightening and opening the space underneath.” As the technology became available, forward-thinking engineers began to emphasize the notions of horizontality and flowing movement by replacing boxy or arched bridges with long overpasses which seemed to “float” over their surroundings. Patton quotes a 1963 Bureau of Public Roads memorandum which states, “Fewer and longer spans give drivers a sense of openness which contributes to relaxed driving... These newer designs reflect the dynamic feeling of traffic movement, with emphasis on long horizontal lines uninterrupted by vertical elements” (Patton 1986: 134-135).

The 1968 FHWA publication Freeway in the City echoes this sentiment. It devotes an entire chapter to discussing ways of making the physical structure of the roadway more pleasant. For example, the book points out that the practice of building elevated freeways on bulky piers is no longer necessary; the use of a single central support in the place of several columns is a more elegant and efficient design solution. The book emphasizes the preferability of light and slender structures over ones that are brutally massive. “The shallowest depth of structure consistent with strength and stiffness requirements, and with minimum clearances, should be used.” As well, the underside of a bridge or overpass should be designed just as carefully as the roadway above for the benefit of the cars or people who pass beneath it. Most importantly, the publication states that “esthetic value should have a high priority in all highway structures” (FHWA 1968: 69-79).

above left: The imposing and gloomy structure of an elevated section of US 59 in downtown Houston, Texas. In contrast, the design of US 183 in Austin, Texas, above right, employs a design that is light, slender and sculptural, rather than bulky and massive. (photos by author)

An excellent example of this philosophy in action can be found along US 183 in northern Austin. Careful attention to artistic detail has been paid to the structure of the elevated highway, and the resulting freeway is one which is very ornate and interesting to behold. TXDoT bridge engineer Dean Van Landuyt says that the painstakingly-articulated highway structures reflect the architectural influence of the nearby State Capitol and University of Texas and also provide a sense of scale to the freeway structure (Van Landuyt 1999).

There has also been an increasing trend towards the ornamentation of highway structures with elements not normally considered part of the palette of highway architecture. For example, bridges crossing over recently-completed state highway 21 in Passaic, New Jersey employ architectural details and brick veneer faces which reference themselves to the 19th-century brick textile mills located in the area (American City & County 1997).

above: The structure of a bridge over I-10 in Beaumont, Texas has been designed to mimic the look of brick and stone architecture. (photos by author)

Freeway decoration, naturally, includes the use of color. Even something as simple as painting freeway overpasses can achieve the effect of breaking up the gray monotony of steel and concrete and add to the visual enjoyment of motorists using the freeway as well as citizens living nearby. The Freeway in the City argues that “great improvement in the visual quality of our bridges and other freeway structures and appurtenances of our nation may be achieved by the simple device of painting the steel in solid attractive colors” (FHWA 1968: 74). The book even suggests that the use of color can help motorists find their way by “coding” a freeway; that is, a color or combination of colors could be applied to a significant portion of an urban highway system to define or unify it.

Even simple techniques such as the use of color, however, can clash with established highway department regulations. In the mid-1980s, a design studio at the University of Houston led by local architect Tom Colbert studying ways to reinforce the character and identity of Houston’s Chinatown neighborhood suggested that the columns supporting the elevated Eastex freeway between downtown and Chinatown be painted red as a way of denoting an “entrance” into the neighborhood. Vehicles passing underneath the freeway, for example, might see the red columns and a “Welcome to Chinatown” sign and understand that they were passing into a unique but heretofore vaguely-defined Houston neighborhood. However, Mr. Colbert and his studio navigated through a ponderous TXDoT bureaucracy only to find that, in the end, such a simple and seemingly innocuous gesture was not permitted under TXDoT regulations (Colbert 1999). [update: the treatment suggested by Mr. Colbert and his studio in the mid-1980s finally occurred in early 2004. 90 columns of US 59 between Polk and Capitol have been painted right red to highlight and honor Chinatown. The creation of an East Downtown Management District and its associated Tax Increment Reinvestment District in 1999 finally provided the political and financial muscle necessary to make this aesthetic enhancement a reality.] Ironically, oftentimes the only sort of aesthetic treatment given to freeway projects in Houston at all is a stripe of color painted along the sides of freeway bridges and overpasses (Tsai 1999).

A combination of the aforementioned aesthetic techniques can be used to not only make a certain stretch of freeway more pleasant but to also give it “character.” The idea that a freeway should have a distinct character is one which is intriguing, for it allows the highway to both look nicer as well as “say” something about the city or region in which it is located, which in turn reinforces its status as a common reference point by which motorists experience the city. For example, recent freeway projects in Phoenix, such as I-10 west of downtown, have been built below grade and have been landscaped with rocks, gravel, palms, cacti and other arid-climate plants, reinforcing the concept of the desert in which Phoenix is located. Geometric designs etched in the sandstone-colored concrete overpasses and retaining walls of the freeway suggest native southwestern petroglyphs, referencing Arizona’s Native American heritage. In this way, not only is the freeway made less disruptive to the city and more aesthetically appealing, but a certain image of Phoenix is impressed on the passing motorist.

above: Geometric designs on a freeway overpass in Phoenix, Arizona are intended to suggest Native American petroglyphs. (photo by author)	above: Detail of a column structure on the Central Expressway in Dallas, Texas. (photo by author)

Another example of a freeway with “character” is the Central Expressway in Dallas. Every structure and element along the highway right-of-way was given aesthetic attention during the design phase. Support columns for over-passes and bridges have been designed to be as visually appealing as possible. The beige concrete columns which form the support structure for the retaining walls contrast with Another example of a freeway with “character” is the Central Expressway in Dallas. Every structure and element along the highway right-of-way was given aesthetic attention during the design phase. Support columns for over-passes and bridges have been designed to be as visually appealing as possible. The beige concrete columns which form the support structure for the retaining walls contrast with the brown, textured infill panels of the walls to create a multicolored and articulated edge to the freeway, and the fact that there are roughly two million square feet of these walls along the nine-mile-long project allow the freeway to distinguish itself from other freeways in the area (TAI 1999; McKeown 1998: 63). The columns, furthermore, by virtue of being located at standard intervals along the highway, create a rhythm for the driver which emphasizes the sense of movement along the highway. Free-standing columns located along the freeway’s entrance and exit ramps further repeat the rhythm but also make the driver’s entrance onto the freeway from the frontage road or an upcoming exit an “event” which adds an additional level of aesthetic value to the project. The sound walls along the edges of the freeway have been carefully designed as well, and landscape planters line much of the roadway, providing an touch of green to the earth-tone elements of the structure itself. Even elements such as the traffic signals, the overhead lighting towers and the overhead sign gantries have been specifically designed to look good and fit in with the overall theme of the Central Expressway. As pleasant as the resulting freeway has become, however, it should also be pointed out that the reconstruction of the Central Expressway came with a hefty price tag of $450 million dollars and took almost ten years to complete (Hartzel 1999: 1A); for that reason, the same level of thought and attention to detail that was put into the Central Expressway project might not be possible as a regularity in the design of other freeway reconstruction projects.

above left: The Central Expressway in Dallas, Texas. above right: A detail of the Central Expressway’s retaining wall design. below left: Free-standing columns mark entrances and exits to the Central Expressway and provide a sense of rhythm for the driver. below right: much of the Central Expressway is below grade. (photos by author)

The city of Sugar Land, southwest of Houston, is working with TXDoT to incorporate aesthetics into the redesign of US 59 through Fort Bend County. Vine-covered retaining walls are being drawn into the plans, nondescript retention ponds are being landscaped into lakes, and intersections and bridges along the reconstructed freeway will include columns topped with the Sugar Land city seal, which features the crown of the Imperial Sugar Company, who originally built the town. A city engineer explains, “We want a little bit above and beyond utilitarian” (Muck 1998).

Another aesthetic technique involves the placement of public art along the freeway right-of-way. Perhaps the most famous example of public art in a freeway corridor is the Squaw Peak Expressway in Phoenix. Along this corridor Massachusetts artists Mags Haries and Lajos Heder have created “Wall Cycle to Ocotillo,” an art installation featuring 35 giant concrete pots placed alongside and atop the freeway’s sound barrier walls. In this way, the pots become public art that is accessible to everyone who drives along the freeway; “the Squaw Peak is probably the first freeway to gain more notoriety as an art piece than as a transportation artery” (Kroloff 1995: 55). Philosophically, the creation of a public art gallery along a freeway right of way seems logical; the freeway is a public, civic space, after all, so why should it not serve a civic purpose beyond that of mere traffic movement?

above left: An example of pottery artwork placed atop sound walls along the Squaw Peak Expressway in Phoenix, Arizona. The pottery artwork is part of a controversial public art installation along the freeway entitled Wall Cycle to Ocotillo. above and below right: pottery sculptures placed in neighbor-hoods adjacent to the Squaw Peak Expressway. (photos by author)

The civic intention of the artwork placement along the Squaw Peak Parkway was to improve the compatibility of the freeway with adjoining neighborhoods and strengthen the sense of place and visual identity for the affected communities (Blair, et al 1998). The motivation behind the project’s design is explained thus:

A related purpose of Wall Cycle to Ocotillo explicitly stated by the artists was to link the neighborhoods severed by the new freeway through a theme in the public art. The theme chosen was vessels, which are universal forms in domestic life in many different cultures and historical periods. The vessel has special meaning in the American Southwest as a container of water and of useful planting environments in the arid climate. The artists saw the vessels as providing a unifying image to link residents who had originated in different parts of the world to the local sense of place. They also intended the vessels to help bridge the difference in scale between the neighborhoods’ domestic world and the monumentality of the freeway. Finally, placing some parts atop the walls and allowing others just to peep above them was intended to help the two disjoined neighborhoods sense a psychological continuity. To the artists, the road, the wall, and the vessel sculptures paradoxically might connect as well as divide the communities (Blair, et al; 1998, summarizing the statement of the artists).

The Squaw Peak project, however, has been extremely controversial. Upon the completion of its installation in 1992 the project sparked a great deal of uproar within the Phoenix area. Fueled by media criticism that was particularly virulent, the controversy caused by the installation not only threatened other Squaw Peak mitigation programs, but as well jeopardized Phoenix’s entire public arts program begun less than a decade earlier. The results of surveys taken of area residents indicated that the overall disapproval of the project was based on four factors: the cost of the artwork (which had a price tag of $474,000), a perception of a low level of public involvement in selecting the artwork, the absence of an art theme that was regional in nature and a perception that the artwork was inappropriately placed (Blair, et al 1998).

It should be noted that public art as well as aesthetics in general are by nature subjective. While Phoenix’s freeways have been repeatedly used as an example of “good” highway design, not everybody likes the way they look. A friend of the author who is familiar with the Phoenix freeway system, for example, decried the “Southwestern” decorative character given to said freeways as having a campy and contrived “taco-deco” quality. Ironically, the same 1968 Freeway in the City publication outlining highway enhancement techniques argues that the beauty of the freeway should come from the monumentality and sleekness of the freeway structure itself and not from elements such as bridge ornamentation or masonry veneer. “It is basic that highway ‘decoration’ in any form is superficial and distracting“ (FHWA 1968: 37-38).

It must also be noted that intricate detail, whether it be in the freeway structure itself or in the form of public art, is difficult to appreciate at 60 miles per hour and might even be a dangerous distraction for the driver. Many freeway artists are cognizant of this fact and incorporate the event of motion into their designs. One design team working on a freeway art project for the retaining and sound walls along a mile-and-a-half long stretch of the new Pima Freeway in Scottsdale, Arizona tried to get a feel for what effect their work would really have by unrolling a 50-foot-long “blueprint” of the project down a hallway and running past it to get the effect of motion (Crissey 1999: 1). A masonry sound wall along I-680 in Walnut Creek, California, starts with a dark gray color at its end but becomes progressively lighter as the driver passes along it, accentuating the diver’s sense of movement and progression; reddish blocks are interspersed along the wall and form a pattern that changes form one end of the wall to the other, creating a sense of rhythm for the driver (Landgon 1997: 26-35).

The 1968 Freeway in the City publication focuses on the beauty and sculpture of the freeway structure as being aesthetically pleasing in and of itself. “For beauty in the highway — as in any place, or space, or object, is inherent” (FHWA 1968: 37-38). Unfortunately for the vast majority of freeways in the urban areas of America, beauty is anything but inherent; the form of the urban freeway has followed its function into the abyss of ugliness and destructiveness. Could these hideous highways reflect a larger tradition? Using the New Jersey Turnpike as an example, Angus Gillespie and Michael Rockland write, “[w]e also believe the Turnpike is aesthetically neither successful nor admirable, but we think it is characteristic of American vernacular” (Gillespie & Rockland 1989: 177). By this they mean the standard whereby Americans have generally valued function over decoration and the concept that that which is functional is also beautiful. “For much of its history, America has been a frontier culture where the arts have had to take a backseat. Survival was what was required, and there was little time or money for embellishments” (Gillespie & Rockland 1989: 177). The two go on to note that the turnpike was “built in this spirit” and is “the perfect embodiment of the late 1940s, early 1950s idea of making things practical and inexpensive but, in the end dull, if not ugly” (Gillespie & Rockland 1989: 178). While the writers take a laudatory view of the Turnpike’s brutal honesty – its utilitarian ugliness, its vistas of refineries, junkyards and tank farms creating what for many is the essence of New Jersey – they also note that it is a relic of an ideal whose time has long since passed:

One thing the Turnpike dramatically does do is to teach Americans some lessons in aesthetics. First, that beauty is not an extra; it is a necessity. And second, that if form follows function, beauty does not inevitably result. The Turnpike is dramatic evidence of the limits to the vernacular idea. The vernacular may have made sense in the early years of the nation’s history, when conquering a continent did not allow for European niceties. But now, in the waning years of the twentieth century, America can no longer afford to define itself aesthetically in such a limited manner. The Turnpike tells us where we have been and where we need to go in the development of an American aesthetic of which we may be proud (Gillespie & Rockland 1989: 184).

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