Asphalt and Concrete

There was a time when the noise of the highway down the street from us abated. Late at night and early in the morning. Those days are gone. The sound of rubber on asphalt comes at all hours now. The road between Johnson City and Fredericksburg, once country, has a winery and tasting room for nearly every mile between the two cities. Even Hye, a wide spot just down the road, has a winery and a distillery.

This little stretch of highway is on its way to becoming what urban planners call a stroad. It combines features of streets and roads. It’s wide and designed for high-speed traffic, but also provides access to strip malls and shops, with little thought given to pedestrians. So, even though there are sidewalks, you hardly ever see people walking on them. Good examples are large sections of Highway 6 in west Houston and Ranch Road 620 in Austin. There’s a link above if you’d like to read more, and I hope you do, because it’s worth thinking about.

Of course, there’s a lot to think about these days, and we have entire think tanks devoted to coming up with things for us to think about. Issues. Things that move the needle and get people to vote. And there are media supporters who amplify the message to create a storm of unrest and get the herd moving. And sometimes they give us so much to think about that we stop thinking and just turn our heads because the noise is too great. At that point, all we can do is watch as another piece of country becomes asphalt and cement.