Sharing Community Goals

I've talked a lot about the desire for Morrison Ranch to reflect the agricultural small-town feel that the Mister had growing up. We share those goals with the Town of Gilbert, as its planners grapple with putting the words "rural community" and "freeway" in the same sentence. They have given it a lot of thought:

When an 8-mile, nearly $110 million freeway is slated to run through a town once known for its hay production, change is inevitable.

This means not only cultural and economic change, but visual as well. To blunt aesthetic upheavals that the Santan Freeway brings to Gilbert, the town has employed some artsy methods to ease the transition for residents left wondering what happened to the open space and farms.

Concrete walls with images of trains and agriculture, recreation basins sitting just yards from the Santan (Loop 202) and themed freeway landscaping are all finding their way into the middle of Gilbert.

The reason, Deputy Town Manager Tami Ryall said, is for Gilbert to keep tight grip on its reputation as a close-knit community, even with rubberized asphalt, noise walls and nearly 1,000 new residents filtering in each month.

Drivers are seeing concrete walls along the realigned Greenfield Road/Union Pacific Railroad underpass that are emblazoned with train-related graphics. Future underpasses and overpasses through the town also will feature train wheels, flashers and cross-arms.

Molded into the concrete, the images harken back to the hundreds of thousands of rail cars that have passed through Gilbert.

"The railroad played such an important part of our history and brought such a wave of prosperity," Ryall said, "just like the Santan will bring a wave of prosperity."Gilbert also gathered public input for bridge walls at Lindsay and Recker roads that will feature agricultural images such as corn and alfalfa.

We don't know exactly what it will look like yet, but we understand that the signature grain tanks of Morrison Ranch will be featured on one of the underpasses, probably on Recker, south of Warner. What a nice reminder.