Face Lift for an Aging Road

The first 15 miles or so of Interstate 10, from the ocean to downtown Los Angeles, hardly lives up to the grandly romantic image conjured by the freeway’s proper name, the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. A dreary, gray ribbon of asphalt traversed daily by as many as 250,000 people, the Santa Monica Freeway has if anything taken on an even bleaker look in recent years. Trees and shrubs, some of which were first planted some 40 years ago, have died off; sprinklers have gone unrepaired, turning once-green embankments into rutted dirt walls, and along other stretches, trees and ivy have become wildly overgrown.

But with freeway traffic slowed to an autumn crawl, drivers who take a closer look will see lots of new green. Caltrans, the state transportation agency, is in the midst of a most welcome landscaping project along parts of the Santa Monica Freeway. It’s the sort of once-in-a-blue-moon effort that makes us realize just how much more beautiful this city would be if we cared for the public trees and plants along all our streets and highways. Certainly the thousands of new trees and plants will be a far more pleasant sight than the gigantic billboards visible from the freeway.

But landscaping is more than mere decoration. Trees and plants help absorb storm runoff and to clear the air. Toward that end, Caltrans contractors are upgrading sprinklers, pruning and removing old trees and shrubs, planting thousands of new ones and making sure they get enough TLC to get them off to a good start. Next year, the agency will turn its attention to the 101 and 134 freeways.

The $7-million Santa Monica Freeway effort is not without its critics. Residents in some neighborhoods worried that removing some of the larger old plants and trees that have helped screen sound would mean more freeway noise; this prompted Caltrans to agree to install more plants, including fast-growing varieties. The new trees--including jacarandas, floss silks and ginkos--will not grow as tall as some of those removed. But the result of this long-overdue effort will surely bring more color and beauty to a gritty and neglected strip of freeway.