In Pictures: Highway Murals

Concrete Shapes Art in the Fast Lane

by Craig Barner, Scott Blair, Eileen Schwartz, and Tom Stabile

Transportation departments across the country are dressing up their roadways with murals, concrete inlays, and other techniques that make waiting in traffic jams a bit easier on the eye. Here is a collection of highway art from across the country on concrete roadways.

U.S. Route 84/285, also known as the Pojoaque corridor, is the only major highway in the north-central region of New Mexico. It sports vivid concrete artwork on the bridges and walls throughout the corridor. (Photo courtesy of New Mexico DOT)

Aesthetic details such as color and artistic inlays were added to the Dallas High Five Interchange in Texas to break up the monotony of long distances of flat concrete retaining walls and tall concrete columns. The project was completed in December 2005 by Zachry Construction of San Antonio, 13 months ahead of schedule. Kansas City-based HNTB provided professional engineering services for the $260 million project.

The 490 Western Gateway Project, a $92 million, multiyear reconstruction of 3.5 mi. of Interstate 490 through the core of Rochester, N.Y., also happens to be an award-winning forum for public art. Features like the “focus panels” on the residential side of noise barriers helped the project win a Special Citation as part of the Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester’s 2006 Arts Awards. The panels were created by artists such as Susan Ferrari-Rowley of nearby Churchville, N.Y.,  who designed a 12 ft. by 12 ft. abstract composed of formed concrete, molded glass chunks, and bent stainless steel rods painted in blues and greens.

Artist Ras ‘Ammar Nsoroma designs and paints murals on the Fond du Lac Bridge abutments of the Marquette Interchange for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The colorful tiles represent adinkra symbols of African derivation and will be on bridges, fences, and cast concrete-relief murals as part of the $850 million project in Milwaukee. The interchange structures, located in a neighborhood on the project’s north leg, will reflect the area’s African American history, including squares from quilts that were hung as signals along the Underground Railroad.

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