They’re calling it a “parkway”? That’s about as Orwellian as the Republicans running a presidential campaign AGAINST Washington – you know, where they’ve held the White House?
Have you ever driven Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway? Now that’s a parkway. Here’s one key fact: It prohibits truck and commercial traffic. So even when it’s jammed with traffic, you’re not hemmed in by tractor-trailers driving through your tailpipe or blowing you off the road. It’s a noticeably more pleasant experience.
North Carolina’s so-called Garden Parkway, a proposed toll road through western Mecklenburg County and eastern Gaston County, isn’t – really – being built because it will relieve clogged roads. It’s a development-enhancing road. And part of the rationale is to help the truck traffic from an intermodal (yucky word, it means dealing with trucks, trains and planes) facility planned at Charlotte’s airport.
Read about how some transportation planners say the road isn’t needed. And read about how two state senators (David Hoyle of Gaston and Robert Pittenger of Mecklenburg, who’s running for lieutenant governor) have bought land along the proposed route Because of local politicians’ continuing inability to say no to developers, those “parkway” interchanges are destined to become as full of glop as those around Charlotte’s outerbelt highway. Tip o the hat to Observer reporter Steve Harrison for those stories. Pittenger, you’ll note, recused himself from two votes that moved the parkway proposal through the legislature.
The 67 miles of the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways are lined with trees and woods, and the Merritt has a series of architecturally interesting bridges, designed by one architect. Both opened as toll roads but tolls were removed in 1988.
Even New Jersey has a parkway that prohibits truck traffic: The Garden State Parkway (not to be confused with our proposed Garden Parkway) was built in the early 1950s and prohibits trucks on the northern third of the route.
Somehow I don’t think the N.C.-style “parkway” will be a “parkway” at all. New name suggestion: The Garden Boondoggle.