Landscaping on Long Island roadsides comes to an end
New York State Department of Transportation workers plant shrubs on the median of the Sagtikos Parkway in Kings Park. (Sept. 24, 2012) Credit: Ed Betz
If you think the side of your road is beautiful, enoy it while you can. And if you think the side of your road looks like, well, the side of a road, get used to it. It's not going to improve, at least not for the next five years.
That's because the State Department of Transportation is tightening its belt, and major landscaping projects on Long Island roads didn't make the cut. If you're wondering why planting is continuing along the Long island Expressway and on the median of the Sunken Meadow Parkway, that's because the already-underway $1.9-million project to beautify those roads and a few others will be completed, but they'll be the last, according to this Newsday report that quotes state transportation officials.
Trees will continue to be trimmed as needed, and invasive species will be removed as the department's time and budget allows, but planting pear trees and removing poison ivy won't be done, and neither will anything else. Instead, the department says it will focus on "preserving Long Island's roads and bridges" and keeping them safe.
I wonder if this will start a guerilla gardening movement on Long Island. Not condoning; just wondering...
