‘Our challenge is to see that these highways are not only superbly functional, but also in harmony with our landscape and a pleasant asset to our lives. After all, this is a civilization where our favorite recreation is driving for pleasure.”
Those were the words of Lady Bird Johnson, America’s 36th first lady who was really into highway beautification. In her estimation, America’s roads weren’t just utilitarian routes for transportation, they were also reflections of our collective psyche and visual inspiration for the journeys of our lives.
What would Lady Bird Johnson say about the overgrown bush-tangled landscapes along the city streets and state highways of Oahu?
Never mind her, what about the people who have to look at the waist-high weeds in median strips and off-ramps along their daily commute?
There could be a contest for the most egregiously untended stretch of roadside, but a top contender has to be the H-1 westbound King Street off-ramp. Taking that exit is like flying into a portal, a weed-tunnel passage that takes you from urban Honolulu to some Kipapa Gulch wilderness in just a matter of seconds before depositing you back in the cement city near the Hawaiian Humane Society.
There are places where the grass along the sides of the street is so long it just about brushes against your car as you pass and swishes like amber waves of grain in your wake. Some roadside areas have actual trees coming up alongside the more common weed tassels and winding vines.
This winter’s alternating days of rain and sun have provided excellent growing conditions for all manner of opportunistic weeds. Keeping up with the overgrowth must be challenging for government work crews.
But just because a job is challenging doesn’t mean it’s OK to let it slide, especially when the sliding of said job is so obvious to taxpayers and visitors alike.
The way Hawaii continues to chase after tourism, you’d thinking keeping the roadways looking nice would be more of a priority. Whether it’s Nimitz or the H-1, there’s no way to go from the airport to a place where tourists spend money that isn’t ugly, and not just folksy-ugly but forgotten ugly, like the remnants of dying Rust Belt towns where factories have closed and there’s no one around to haul away junk cars, mow the sides of the roadways and keep up appearances. Hawaii is in the business of showing off and making money as a destination. Hawaii should be able to keep up appearances.
Looking on the bright side, the profusion of roadside weed growth hides the broken shopping carts, ripped tarps and trash piles that build up along the thoroughfares, and if tall grass is clogging sidewalks, that could be a deterrent to homeless encampments taking root.
But that’s not much of a bright side.
Oahu’s unkempt roadsides are just another reminder that we shouldn’t build more stuff if we can’t care for what we already have.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
