Recognizing the lure of pleasure driving, some States could see roadways as integral parts of the parks they were beginning to build. One of the earliest efforts in this direction was New York City’s Central Park, opened in 1862, with an excellent system of roadways for horsedrawn vehicles.[1] One of the earliest parks with boulevards to be completed as a total system was constructed in Kansas City, Missouri, with the original designs dating back to 1893.[2]
New York’s Bronx River Parkway was the first parkway in the Westchester County system, a system that in 1925 pioneered the limited access scenic road.[3]
In 1928 the Bureau of Public Roads made its entry into construction of national parkways. With a mandate to complete a highway from Washington, D.C., to Mount Vernon in Virginia, the Bureau, using knowledge gained in observing the development of the Westchester County parkway system, attacked the problem of coordinating design, location, landscaping and construction into a finished parkway that would befit an approach to the home of our First President. This, the Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway, was the first major project to which the Bureau assigned a full-time landscape architect. From the construction of this project, a new awareness of the relationship of landscaping to construction, design, and maintenance was established at the Federal level.
In 1932 the American Association of State Highway Officials joined with the Highway Research Board in the appointment of a Joint Committee on Roadside Development. During the next 8 years, the Joint Committee prepared and published a number of reports. By 1940 it was felt that the field had enlarged to the point of justifying some degree of specialization. Accordingly, the Joint Committee was replaced by a committee appointed by HRB to continue research activities and a committee appointed by AASHO to concentrate on administrative issues.
As a means of exchanging ideas on all aspects of roadside development, the Ohio Department of Highways and the Department of Landscape Architecture of Ohio State University began sponsoring in 1941 an annual Short Course on Roadside Development which has developed over the years into a national conference. The proceedings of the conference are published each year to disseminate the latest information.
With increasing interest in the subject, Congress proceeded to include in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 approval for the use of construction funds to cover tcosts of roadside and landscape development. This measure established a new standard for Federal assistance in meeting costs beyond those incurred for purely engineering needs. As a result, many roadside development activities were carired out. Nevertheless, the provisions were permissive only, and since the funds came from amounts otherwise earmarked for construction, there was a reluctance by a number of States to allocate moneys to roadside development at the expense of badly needed new highways. It was not until the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 provided separate funding for roadside development that States really took advantage of this permissive legislation.
A junkyard along the Baltimore-Washington Expressway in Anne Arundel County is effectively screened with wood slats and with vines planted along the fence.
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