Missed design opportunity with bridges as aesthetic elements of neighborhoods

 I do write about bridge abutments and underpasses as marketing and urban design-placemaking opportunities.  I had this concept to do public art lighting of the underpasses in Takoma (Piney Branch, Aspen, Van Buren, and Kansas Avenue, not Cedar Street because it has wall tile public art project already, but lighting would have been better) as a system.

Birmingham Light Rails, Alabama, Bill FitzGibbon

The Elvert Barnes photo feed on Flickr has this photo of a bridge in Southwest DC as part of a "walk to the Tidal Basin" to see the cherry blossoms.  Can't remember what street this is.

DC should paint/maintain the bridges and underpasses as an element of neighborhood urban design ("Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning").

It's also keeping with the 1800s "railroad beautiful" movement by Richardson and Olmstead, although it was more focused on stations and their grounds ("A Railroad Beautiful" and "The Treatment of City Squares--III; The Square Before the Railroad Station," House and Garden (2) 1902 and "Railroad Gardening," Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture) 

And what I call transportation infrastructure as an element of civic architecture.

DC does understand they can do this.  But I think this example on Florida Avenue NE promoting the Metropolitan Branch Trail is the only one I know of in the city.

But I think it needs to be more in your face and visible.  The MBT example is a bit timid, and therefore easy to miss.  This is from the Great Rivers Greenway program in St. Louis.

Similar examples include Camden, London.  In your face is better and a better marketing tool.  And it's also an urban design and quality of life and anti graffiti measure.

Other treatments can be more arty.

Outside the Vauxhall Underground Station, London promoting the nearby Brunel Museum

Hartford Connecticut

Underpasses too.

Spring Garden Station, Philadelphia.

And under freeways.

Great Rivers Greenways, St. Louis.

Which can include placemaking initiatives like the Bentway in Toronto and the Underline in Miami.