Page:Interregional Highways.pdf/118

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92
INTERREGIONAL HIGHWAYS

approached by pedestrian bridges or by steps from a crossing bridge or street. A treatment of this general character is suggested in plate X.

On urban sections of the routes the planting of trees in formal arrangement will be more appropriate than on rural sections. A tree screen may be used to separate the highway from an adjacent railroad, freight yard, or industrial siding, or to conceal other unsightly or objectionable roadside conditions. Trees in formal arrangement may be set against the straight lines of the local service ways to insulate bordering residential property from the restless movement of traffic on the expressway. But everywhere the effort should be made to avoid monotony and tiresome sameness in such plantings over long stretches of the routes.

Small flowering trees and vines may be appropriately set in the wider median or lateral areas and on the side slopes of depressed sections to vary the sameness of long stretches of uniform turfed banks. And every section of retaining wall at crossing bridges and against the local service ways will offer the opportunity for attractive groupings of small flowering trees, masses of colorful roses, and other low-growing plants in suitable relation.

All these things may be done in complete consistency with the utilitarian functions of the expressways. And, so treated, these new arterial ways may be made—not the unsightly and obstructive gashes feared by some—but rather elongated parks bringing to the inner city a welcome addition of beauty, grace, and green open space.