20,000 Trees to Spruce up Houston freeways for Super Bowl

It seems our local leadership has finally come to the realization that the drive from Bush airport into downtown is absolutely hideous. The answer: plant 20,000 trees on 45 and 59. I think it's a great idea. Why it has never been addressed to date, I don't know, but imo, better late than never. The North freeway is just repulsive with those billboards, strip clubs, furniture stores and endless car dealerships. 59 is only marginally better, because a lot of the area isn't over developed.

Another absolutely disgusting area is 290 and the Beltway. The corten steel is rusting out and running all down the cement poles. Just atrocious.

Here's the article from the Chronicle this morning:

Ugly? Leaders see the blight
Landscaping most freeways part of Super Bowl plan
By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

It was just three words in a 2,500-word essay in The Economist magazine a couple of years ago, but to Charles McMahen they still sting:

"Houston is ugly."

Though the article about the city was largely positive, and the ugly reference was aimed broadly at Houston's sprawl, lack of zoning and other issues, McMahen cites the sentence when talking about an initiative to improve the city's gateways.

"Clearly, 59 North, the Hardy Toll Road and 45 North are really in need of some work," said McMahen, chairman of the Quality of Life Advisory Committee of the Greater Houston Partnership.

Which of the three is least attractive?

"It's sort of like asking, `Which one of your children is ugliest?' " McMahen says.

Houston is expecting company -- lots of company -- on Feb. 1 when the Super Bowl is played in Reliant Stadium. The partnership, the Super Bowl Host Committee and other groups want to fix up the town before then, and landscaping the major entryways is part of the push.

Some civic leaders consider the North Freeway, with its heavy traffic and long stretches of garish signs, strip malls, car lots, topless clubs and modeling studios, such an eyesore that limo drivers may be asked to bring VIPs in on the Hardy.

"Hardy is at least a little greener. I wouldn't characterize it as scenic," said Bob Eury, executive director of the Downtown Houston Management District and a member of Houston Super Bowl XXXVIII's Host Committee. "That would be a little bit of an overstatement. It looks better than 45, it absolutely does."

Tell that to Jim McIngvale, a Host Committee member who owns Gallery Furniture on the North Freeway.

"Why don't we just hire Steven Spielberg and have him build us a big set that disguises the area?" McIngvale said. "To me, it's kind of ludicrous. Why hide what we are?"

It's not merely an aesthetic issue. The Quality of Life Advisory Committee of the Greater Houston Partnership and the Quality of Life Coalition think it's about ... well, quality of life.

Three years ago, the coalition, composed of 70 businesses, political and environmental groups, began a push to landscape highways, reduce visual blight and develop new recreational amenities.

"We spend too much time on these freeways not to have them look better than they do today," said McMahen, chairman of both Quality of Life groups. "We hope to have plantings on every freeway in the city over the next few years."

The coalition is aiming high. It wants the Texas Department of Transportation and the county to landscape all highways inside the beltway in the next five years -- work the coalition estimates would cost $75 million.

"We don't have $75 million," said Ethan Beeson, a TxDOT landscape architect who has helped design highway plantings in the Houston region.

A state law requires half of 1 percent of state highway construction funding in counties not in compliance with EPA air quality standards to be spent on highway landscaping.

Harris County qualifies. The money provides a steady stream for highway landscaping, but will not approach $75 million in the next five years, Beeson said.

As a first step, the coalition has urged that highways serving as gateways to the city from Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports be landscaped. TxDOT and the county have agreed to try to complete the work before Super Bowl week.

This fall, more than 20,000 trees will be planted along the gateways: 7,544 along the North Freeway from Interstate 10 to Rankin, 8,915 along the Eastex Freeway from I-10 to Will Clayton and 4,350 on the Gulf Freeway from the Southwest Freeway to Beltway 8. The Gulf project will include 1,115 palms.

Beeson said the trees -- 7 to 10 feet tall -- will be planted every 8 feet where possible and mostly between highways and frontage roads. "Obviously, they won't make as much impact this January as they will five Januarys from now," he said. "There's nothing we can do about that."

The Greater Houston Partnership and the coalition also have pressed for landscaping along the Hardy from the North Loop to Beltway 8, a stretch not in danger of being designated "scenic" by the American Automobile Association.

TxDOT has agreed to plant trees from the North Loop to Crosstimbers, and the coalition wants the Harris County Toll Road Authority to do the rest.

But there's little room along the toll road for landscaping. Union Pacific's railroad tracks run along the west side of the highway for a long stretch, then between the north- and southbound lanes. Lining the road are older small homes, light industry, a few bars and some convenience stores.

Trees can't be planted near the railroad tracks because the roots could ruin buried fiber optic cable and the branches could pose a danger to trains.

The coalition wants oleanders, which put down relatively shallow roots, planted near the tracks and possibly some other plants elsewhere, said Bill Coats, a Quality of Life Coalition member negotiating with Union Pacific.

"We'll get it done," Coats said. "It's just a question of whether we can get it done by the Super Bowl. We'd like to make it a nice gateway into the city."

A massive landscaping project along a 3 3/4-mile toll road linking the Hardy to JFK Boulevard, the entrance to Bush Intercontinental, won't be completed until August 2004, however.

The Host Committee is leaning toward having Super Bowl visitors shuttled in and out on the Hardy, but no final decision has been made, Eury said.

The disdain for I-45 north rankles "Mattress Mac" McIngvale.

"I don't see anything wrong with taking them down the North Freeway. It's very dynamic. It's an example of free enterprise and capitalism, which is what built this country," McIngvale said. "It pays me and the 400 people who work here. I don't bite the hand that feeds me."

McIngvale has been active in promoting sports events in Houston. Gallery Furniture set up a $7 million line of credit to bring the 2003 and 2004 Tennis Masters Cups to the city.

"I can promise you this, that all the dignitaries coming in for the Tennis Masters Cup will be taken right by my store," McIngvale said. Local sports honchos "may mind coming down the freeway. But they don't mind taking my money for sponsorships at Reliant Stadium."

The Host Committee will inform limousine, taxi and shuttle drivers of recommended highways and roads during a committee-sponsored training session in January. Drivers will be advised to take Memorial Drive between downtown and Uptown. Main, Fannin and San Jacinto, which will be gussied up by the Super Bowl, will be the recommended routes between downtown and Reliant Park, said Eury of the Host Committee.

Along these routes, rye grass, which turns a lush green during winter months, may be planted in vacant lots and bare areas, Eury said. Pansies and cyclamens, flowers that do well in winter, also will be on display.

"In the middle of January, we have a chance to have a green city, flowered city, a blooming city," Eury said. "And it's a chance to show visitors what a nice climate we have."

The highway beautification projects to be completed before the game aren't the area's first.

About 11 years ago, to prevent slope erosion, trees and other landscaping were planted along parts of I-10 between downtown and the West Loop.

Many of the beautification projects over the last five years have been the work of TxDOT's Green Ribbon Project. It was launched because Houston had an image of being a sprawling web of unattractive, concrete corridors -- an image that sometimes made it hard to recruit out-of-town business talent, said TxDOT spokesman Norm Wigington.

"When they were trying to sell Houston, they were hearing, `This is not as attractive as going into Atlanta or going into San Francisco,' " he said.

Over the past five years, TxDOT has planted 30,000 to 40,000 trees annually in the region.

Massive projects have included planting 10,300 trees, including 300 palms, on the Gulf Freeway at Beltway 8; 12,000 trees on the Eastex Freeway at the North Loop; and 12,000 trees on the Southwest Freeway at Beltway 8.

About 3,000 trees are being planted along the Southwest Freeway near the arch bridges.

"Is it going to make a difference? Obviously, yes," said Beeson, the TxDot landscape architect. "We're planting thousands and thousands of trees. We're trying to green the corridors and make it more aesthetically pleasing."