THE BIPOLAR PARKWAY
The recent work on the Pasadena Freeway has been an exercise in contradictions – a beautification that actually renders the scenic byway less beautiful; safety barriers that make the road less safe; and a nod to local history that insults Arroyo Seco culture by reducing its significance to bland, ill-conceived motifs dreamt up in Sacramento and stamped in concrete to last an eternity.
The $17 million project started just as the six-mile stretch of freeway received both landmark designation and a new/old name to go with it. The “Arroyo Seco Parkway,” has, in the course of its renovation, lost many of the elements that made it, the first “freeway” in America, so groundbreaking – the innovative curb and gutter system, the classic wood and steel safety barriers, and the compound curves built for speed (a lightning-fast 45 miles-per-hour); actually the curves will remain. What won’t are the vistas to the series of sycamore-filled parks that line alternating sides of the highway as well as into the Arroyo Seco channel itself.
In place of all this, drivers will be treated to new decorative elements courtesy of CalTrans – concrete side barriers stamped with a pattern attempting to mimic either the rubble walls that characterize the Craftsman homes along the Arroyo or the broken concrete walls that first adorned the route; “historic” lighting that bears no relation to any of the fixtures anywhere in Northeast Los Angeles despite their cloying faux-traditional look (and which, when suspended one hundred feet in the air, look pathetically inadequate); and a concrete center divider stamped with a bizarre design motif of alternating arches intended, apparently, to reference the bed of the channel on the one hand and the parabolic arches of the several overpasses on the other. Some call it the Happy-Sad Highway; I prefer the Bipolar Parkway.
I guess the most irritating thing about the whole exercise is the implication of community input. This is CalTrans: there was none. They took it upon themselves to tell us what we’re about. I say, don’t bother. If you’re going to “restore” the parkway, then really do it – go back to the original drawings and put it back to the way it really was, down to the smallest detail. If you can't do that, then do what you do best – simple clean lines, the latest technology, the most current light fixtures. Anything in between is at best pastiche and at worst a slap in the face.
The recent work on the Pasadena Freeway has been an exercise in contradictions – a beautification that actually renders the scenic byway less beautiful; safety barriers that make the road less safe; and a nod to local history that insults Arroyo Seco culture by reducing its significance to bland, ill-conceived motifs dreamt up in Sacramento and stamped in concrete to last an eternity.
The $17 million project started just as the six-mile stretch of freeway received both landmark designation and a new/old name to go with it. The “Arroyo Seco Parkway,” has, in the course of its renovation, lost many of the elements that made it, the first “freeway” in America, so groundbreaking – the innovative curb and gutter system, the classic wood and steel safety barriers, and the compound curves built for speed (a lightning-fast 45 miles-per-hour); actually the curves will remain. What won’t are the vistas to the series of sycamore-filled parks that line alternating sides of the highway as well as into the Arroyo Seco channel itself.
In place of all this, drivers will be treated to new decorative elements courtesy of CalTrans – concrete side barriers stamped with a pattern attempting to mimic either the rubble walls that characterize the Craftsman homes along the Arroyo or the broken concrete walls that first adorned the route; “historic” lighting that bears no relation to any of the fixtures anywhere in Northeast Los Angeles despite their cloying faux-traditional look (and which, when suspended one hundred feet in the air, look pathetically inadequate); and a concrete center divider stamped with a bizarre design motif of alternating arches intended, apparently, to reference the bed of the channel on the one hand and the parabolic arches of the several overpasses on the other. Some call it the Happy-Sad Highway; I prefer the Bipolar Parkway.
I guess the most irritating thing about the whole exercise is the implication of community input. This is CalTrans: there was none. They took it upon themselves to tell us what we’re about. I say, don’t bother. If you’re going to “restore” the parkway, then really do it – go back to the original drawings and put it back to the way it really was, down to the smallest detail. If you can't do that, then do what you do best – simple clean lines, the latest technology, the most current light fixtures. Anything in between is at best pastiche and at worst a slap in the face.
1 comment:
So incredibly brilliant Tom!
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