SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 225 



means within our hands to make our city landscapes just as enjoyable, 

 just as exhilarating as any other part of our national landscape. 



The concept of the scenic road would have to be applied differently 

 to the city. You would not be able to control a wide visual corridor 

 in any rigid manner. Nor would you be able to develop roads which 

 are primarily for leisurely kind of driving. (Although even here, I 

 am no so sure. There is just the possibility that we may think again 

 of pleasure roads built just for that purpose. This, of course, was 

 the original parkway idea, which was later swamped by commuter 

 traffic.) But even in a mixed multipurpose road, there are ways 

 in which you can handle the alignment, the general location, the 

 opening and screening of views, the form of nearby structures. All 

 of these things can be used to exhibit the city to the best advantage. 



Whether they are ugly or handsome, cities are the symbols of our 

 society. The highway can uncover its rich diversity, its problems as 

 well as its potentials. 



Not only can you use a highway to exhibit the city but you can so 

 arrange space and light, form and color to give a very rich succession 

 of visual events. 



All of these things, incidentally, apply not only to the highway, but 

 to the entire movement system in the city. They can be considered 

 in a 400-miles-an-hour transit system or on a walkway. 



One must be concerned not only with the view from the road but 

 with the view of it. I think I can pass over that because Mr. Halprin 

 did such a good job in describing how one might fit a city highway 

 to the whole fabric of a city. The idea of a corridor is of importance. 

 By dealing with the entire linear strip of environment and building 

 it as a whole, one can completely change the visual environment and 

 at the same time recapture values and begin to confront some of the 

 social and economic problems of relocation. 



All of these things are technically possible now. We also need a 

 substantial effort of research involving not only the characteristics of 

 existing highway systems, but possible new technology and the whole 

 range of movement in a city. It should include possible design ideas 

 and studies of how people behave on a road. Some of the research 

 is already begun. 



Now would be the time to build a prototype city road of this kind, 

 to allot the design time and talent that would be necessary to show 

 what could be done with this kind of system. 



