WOODBRIDGE — A tree may grow in Brooklyn, but a lot of flowers have started growing on the side of the states two biggest toll roads, putting some garden back in the Garden State Parkway.
For the second year in a row, drivers on the Garden State Parkway and parts of the grittier New Jersey Turnpike have been treated to a flower show.
The explosion of spring and summer colors is not an accident or the result of a flipped over seed truck ? it is the because of the Turnpike Authority?s wildflower program, which is in its second year.
?Obviously the reason is to beautify the highways and to avoid cutting the grass,? said Transportation Commissioner James Simpson, who also is chairman of the turnpike authority board.
During this second year of the program, the authority has increased the acreage planted with wildflowers from 21 to 45 acres on the Turnpike and 32 to 46 on the Parkway between 2012 and 2013. The wildflower program has been twinned with a ?no mow? program, where grass 16 feet from the road edge is not cut. Both programs combined has reduced the number of acres mowed from 453 to 196 acres and saved 573 gallons of fuel between 2011 and 2011, according to an 2012 authority report. Exact cost savings were not listed.
Wildflower areas on the Parkway are south of the Driscoll Bridge between mileposts 125 and 104.
?It looks like what drivers are accustomed to seeing in the Southern states,? said Gary DeFelice, landscape specialist for the Turnpike Authority. ?We tried to mimic their programs.?
The result are floral displays, some of which start blooming in July or August and continue until the first frost, DeFelice said.
The authority plants seed mixtures of annuals, which flower longer, and perennials, which grow longer. Seed mixtures include marigolds, sunflowers black-eyed susans and daisies, he said.
The program has gotten positive feedback from drivers who have something else to look at in traffic besides asphalt and the bumper of the vehicle ahead of them.
?It?s been well received by commuters,? DeFelice said, some of whom have written to the authority. ?In one driver?s letter, they said their kids tried to spot flowers on the way back from the Shore.?
Simpson suggested that the authority consider having companies sponsor the plantings, which would be identified with a small sign, similar to what has been done on the Atlantic City Expressway. Authority officials said they will look into that suggestion.
