Beautification of I-575?

I love viewing nature. The beauty never ceases to amaze me. Take I-575 for instance. It has always struck me as beautiful. Wild flowers, wide grassy medians, beautiful trees near the edge blocking all the industrial/residential world, fairly regular trash pickup (that's another story!) and regular mowing. Very nice.

Well, recently, in the name of beauty, there have been a number of improvements. Hooray! Particularly between Exit 11 and Exit 7. At Sixes Road, workers have toiled tirelessly to clear out the offending, ugly messy crepe myrtles and evergreens in the triangles below the exit ramps. They block the view of the exit ramp and drop blossoms, causing allergic reactions. They have artfully replaced them with smooth dirt (no maintenance nor blocking of the view), beautiful river rock (presumably for the streams and waterfalls to come) and trendy black fencing (actually a double row of practical black plastic). This will enable what I'm sure they anticipate as a very wide, new exit, probably 10 to 12 lanes if they use all the cleared area.

Then there's the wonderful care they exhibit towards the needs of our wild animals. Take the beavers, for example. They have a hard time with all the construction of open, mini, major and outlet malls. So the caring government has provided them with ready-prepared kits of dam material. They just had to move one of the many piles of tree debris that has been provided for their new habitation. How thoughtful!

And noise pollution! Well, all these housing developments that have been built near the expressway, long after it was built of course, contribute cacophonies of noise from parties, barbecues, lawn mowers and—particularly annoying—loud snoring.  This is annoying to all of us trying to drive along the highway. Wow, what a distraction! So the highway department is building those magnificent designer walls to protect us as we drive along. We don't have to hear the noise. And since all the trees along the sides of the road have been removed to a distance of (oh, I'd say a quarter mile), we don't have to look into the back yards of all those places. How embarrassing that is!

Not only that, but it appears they have built these fences very close to the highway. As you approach southbound to exit 8, where they are going to add lanes (lane?) to the exit, it appears they have built the wall right up to the side of the new lane. No room or need for a shoulder I'm sure. That would just promote people stopping to galk at each other. Disgusting! 

More recently I've noticed that they plan to continue that wall to where? Blue Ridge? If they think about it, maybe they can put one up on the other side.  That would feel like one of those neat tunnels. Oh, then they could put a cover between the walls. That would really protect us.

So thank you, county, state and city for the beautification of our highway. We are so lucky you show us such care.