Dallas' Weed Garden

Highway to hell -- Picture by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
North Central Expressway is a main traffic artery in Dallas, Texas. It connects downtown Dallas to downtown McKinney. It was conceived by Dallas city planner (and visionary) George Kessler as far back as 1911 and officially proposed in 1924 -- the idea was to repurpose the Houston-Texas Central Railroad tracks as a new expressway for cars. The proposal met with political opposition from various interest groups but finally came to fruition; the grand new expressway opened in 1950. The cramped 4-lane highway with tiny on-ramps and egresses was pathetically inadequate for midcentury traffic when it opened.

It didn't extend thru Richardson until 1956, and commuters had to contend with the short-comings of North Central "Distressway" for another 30 years, until a 600 million dollar renovation plan was hatched in the early 1980's. The ambitious plan called for North Central to be replaced with a long trench, using cantilevered access roads to compensate for the still-narrow right-of-way for any new construction. The widening of Central from LBJ northward to Legacy took place from 1986 thru 1990. The widening of Central southward from LBJ to Woodall Rogers took place from 1992 thru 1999 -- on time and within budget.

The completed highway won national kudos for being a distinctive and cutting-edge example of modern highway architecture. North Central was beautiful -- a concrete sculpture of air columns dancing amid articulated earth-toned walls, and clean, sweeping expanses of underpasses accented with beautiful, drought-tolerant Texas landscaping. When the last part was opened in 1999, people would drive on the new expressway just to "ooh" and "aah" at Dallas' classiest new piece of infrastructure. If the highway weren't enough, the expanded overpasses were also "whomped" up with modern sculptures, paver stones, and additional beautiful landscaping -- notably on Caruth, Mockingbird, Monticello and Knox Streets.

Now let us flash forward to today, 2010. If you are driving, as I do, from Monticello southward to the Central entrance ramp, you will be surely aghast at what you see. Here's a tire and a bit of a car bumper. Yonder way is a light pole that was smashed and inadequately replaced -- crumbling cement and tire marks to tell the tale of an intoxicated driver. All along the way, weeds peer thru cracks, seams and crevices -- little botanical pests that could surely be dispatched with a single squirt of Round-up weed killer. Here's a Bud Lite bottle and there is a to-go box from Pei Wei. Along the entire route, you wonder if Dallas drives drunk much of the time. Collision streaks and blackened wall patches belie any concept of a tranquil city.

Drive across the many bridges and you see where someone threw in the maintenance towel. Sculpture balls are smashed and stay in ruins. Landscape (e.g, ground cover vines) were first allowed to grow frenetically past their planter box boundaries, then parched to death in the searing Texas heat. If you look now, the only plant life that survives at all are extremely hardy creatures of the heat and defiant weeds. Some portions of the Expressway look post-apocalyptic -- you might wonder if a neutron bomb went off somewhere and the inhabitants left the area for a safe room somewhere.

This blog author must confess ignorance -- I'm not at all certain which level of city, county or state governance controls the appearance and maintenance of this highway. I'd think that TxDOT has a hand in it. The overpasses have some personalization and influence of the Park Cities, e.g. municipal banners flying -- I'd think cities have some say. The Dallas Morning News ran an article in the last year in which the North Central landscaping was described as a first casualty of Dallas' tax collection shortfall. Such a shame. Here are blogSpotter's recommendation's to overcome our civic shame:

o Remove all debris from vehicular accidents
o Remove all trash
o Repair crumbled sculptures and concrete walls
o Repaint large and near-continuous patches of blackened wall
o Weed-kill the many million weeds
o Remove dead plants. If there is no intention of watering, pave over else replace the dead plants.

Do all of these things on a regular basis, not just when it becomes a public embarrassment and people start asking about it.

When the 2011 Super Bowl comes to the DFW area in February '11, the whole world will be tuning in to our metroplex. Every part of town will be on national, even international TV cameras. Do we want people asking what kind of Trailer Trash mentality has begat North Central? Do we want to rehatch stereotypes of southern cities as tax-and-civic deprived enclaves of arrogance and myopia? blogSpotter suspects not. Let's beautify North Central while there is still time.

© 2010 blogSpotter