bleakness of long stretches
Although “Keep Austin Weird” advocates point to locally-owned businesses as a source of Austin’s weirdness, it was TXDOT who was making the city weird back in 1970. I just ran across an old story from Texas Highways magazine that details how the state transportation installed Astroturf at the MoPac/2222 interchange. These forward-thinking transportation engineers rolled out the space-age technology to reduce maintenance costs and improve the appearance of the intersection, which was no less ugly in 1970 as it is today. According to the site where I found this gem, the one thousand square feet of Astroturf “accumulated dirt and oil, garbage stuck to its oily surface, and the bright green rapidly became a nasty gray color.”
Texasfreeway.com has plenty more interesting historical photographs of Austin roads. I’m particularly fascinated by the shots of East Avenue, which I-35 followed, once the state decided to pull a Robert Moses and keep “undesirables” on the east side of town. It’s a pity we couldn’t have kept what looks like a lovely boulevard and had the freeway follow Airport Blvd instead.
