Tree-Lined Blvd.

Our little suburb has redone the major street that goes through the city, widening it a bit and adding a bike lane. They're also adding trees to the median area between the sidewalk and the street. While this is annoying in that the guys who are putting the trees in park their truck in the far right lane (why don't you pull into the parking lot, guys?) and traffic backs up behind it, I can also see how cool it will be in a few years having all these trees lining the street. Many of them are the kinds of trees that won't grow very tall-- but they are flowering trees, so they'll have nice pink, white, or purple flowers at various times of the year.

When I lived in Pensacola (it's still there, I'm not) there was this one street that I loved to drive down because it had this green arch of trees over the center of it. On each side were planted oaks that reached cathedral-like towards each other. You would drive through the green-tinted sunshine and it felt like you were someplace magical. It really made you not notice the somewhat run-down brick ranch houses and sleezy bar to the sides of you. I always enjoyed this stretch of road. I know that the road in my little suburb will not get quite that pretty-- the trees won't grow that tall, for one, the lanes are too wide to get the touching in the middle for two.... but it still will be so much nicer than the urban blight of pawn shop signs and fast food parking lots. It's really nice to see a community planning something purely aesthetic to make the place we live moderately better. Of course, who the heck can guess how much this probably cost, taxpayer wise. I'd prefer to not know; it would most likely spoil it for me.