This first post is a collection of thoughts as I begin to find my way ...
Hi(gh) Neighbors
This is a fairly recent view of the Lyndon B Johnson Fwy in Dallas, TX. Here I’m looking east on top of the pedestrian bridge that spans from the corner of Morningstar Ln and Templeton Trl in Farmers Branch, to High Meadow Dr and Cromwell Dr in Dallas.
This was once a much more quiet, eight-lane highway at surface level. The addition of the underground TEXPress lanes result in road and engine noise bouncing off the concrete walls and permeating through the nearby air.
The improvement in auto transit does not make for an improvement as a neighbor. In fact, it does not make for a good neighbor at all. Before this portion of the highway was reconstructed, my half-a-mile-away backyard was mostly a peaceful place, shaded by large trees and largely free from the constant hum of rubber on pavement. Sure, we could hear the highway if we paid attention, but it wasn’t the overbearing wall of noise that now exists.
From the LBJ TEXPress Website:
By employing new tolled TEXpress Lanes we offer drivers a choice in their daily commutes. And by introducing variable fluctuating pricing based on traffic demand, the LBJ Express enables drivers to maintain a more predictable rate of speed. The idea is CHOICE! You have safer, reconstructed general highway lanes, fully-optimized frontage roads, and new and reliable TEXpress Lanes that offer you a convenient trip from one end of the project to the other.
Speaking of CHOICE! What about public transit? What about cycling and pedestrian infrastructure? I635 seems like a perfect place to connect east and west train routes. I’d love to see TxDOT put forth some concerted effort into improving transit as a whole instead of focusing solely on private automobile transit.
I also wonder how green, living walls might reduce noise pollution? And how they might help improve air pollution? Can a certain portion of tolls be directed to making the highway infrastructure a better neighbor to the nearby people and businesses?
Crepe Myrtle Mess
It wasn’t long ago that I realized developers often name the streets after what they found (and often destroyed) before development.
The streets in this North Dallas neighborhood just south of I635 have names like “High Mesa,” “High Meadow” and “High Bluff,” and it’s at least possible that a high meadow or bluff existed here before development. The neighborhood has an elevation of over 100ft higher than the nearby Elm Fork of the Trinity River to the west, which likely would have been a relatively obvious observation without modern development impeding sweeping views of the tall-grass prairie landscape.
Long gone are the prairie plants native to the area. In their place, seemingly endless islands of cultivated turf-grass separated by concrete. And, for reasons that I’m sure I’ll get to at length at some point, plant species that originated from China, the crepe myrtle being one of many.
In fact, North Texas seems to have a fascination with plants from China. Which, to a degree, I get, as China has one of the highest plant species counts of any country on Earth. But, North Texas was previously home to one of the most unique eco-regions on Earth and deserves to be celebrated: the Blackland Prairie.
It seems awfully silly (and not in a good way) to fill the area with plants from other parts of the world when we already have such a diverse set of plants available that are just as hardy, just as easy to grow, and more ecologically useful to our local wildlife. Instead of the Japanese Honeysuckle below, for example, plant Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)!
Corona Familiar
Police hate this one weird trick!
While it’s illegal to drink alcohol in public in most places in the U.S., if you conceal what you’re drinking in something like a brown paper bag, plausible deniability typically leads the police to look the other way. True, or not? Ridiculous either way.
Maybe we all need to wrap our delicious beers in paper bags, just in case? Or better yet, we instead utilize koozies that look like brown paper bags?
Koozies in the style of the “College” shirt worn by John Belushi’s character in Animal House might also work, except the koozie says “Beer,” or rather, “Not Beer.”
Hmmm. On second thought, there is probably some sort of law about misrepresentation of an alcoholic beverage. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.
And what’s with the opposing dinosaurs in the midst of orgasms on the can?
Someone is bound to correct me with a “well, actually” to inform me that they are actually griffins — a cross between a lion and an eagle — and that they are guarding the precious nectar of the gods that is Corona Familiar. But that sounds about as ridiculous to me as my depiction of dueling, ejaculating dinosaurs.
Mural on Marsh
So what did I see? I saw single family residential homes from the 50s and 60s built on flat land, sandwiched between rows of concrete filled with cars along the way. I saw the sun nearing the end of its work for the day. I saw a bunch of trees towering above islands of grass, and people watering said trees and grass. And I saw this, a mural along a busy road.
It’s nice to see people out—to smile and say hi—to connect, even just a little bit, in a very human way.
