Before and After: The Story of Progress

Before & After : The story of Progress

Driving down the two lane road with no shoulders to my home used to be called the "back way." There are better roads that are used to get through town , however we never actually call them the front way. The first picture above was taken on a road similar to my "back way" because PROGRESS is coming to the back way. The route is scenic with huge trees lining it. Instead of shoulders next to the road you have ditches that threatened to swallow your car should you slide too far over. Wildlife crosses the road occasionally, therefore one always needs to drive slowly yet hardly no one does.

Welcome Progress. The second picture above is the face of progress. The powers that be have decided to upgrade the road, no doubt because the back way is now becoming a front way. Planning commissions are even thinking of extending it a few miles from here to reach to the interstate.

While it will be safer and much easier to to drive on the new roadway, someone has to sacrifice to make it happen. The most direct sacrificer ( is that a word??) is the TREES. Within a week the land was raped and violated as trees were chopped down, pulverized into huge mulch piles and bulldozed to prepare the land for shoulders and wider lanes. The scene was shocking and sad.

Progress is good, but it leaves questions:

• Where will the deer and bunnies sleep?
• Will the neighborhood get louder now that the buffer is gone and presumably more traffic will flow?
• Is progress really progress? What about the benefits of mature trees, i.e. beauty, oxygen, shade?