Looking through the records, we at Better Burque have written almost 700 posts (this is #698) since early 2016 on a large number of transportation-related subjects around town. In that time we have written *checks notes again* exactly zero blogposts on the subject of median landscaping.

So, reading this morning’s D’val Westphal “Road Warrior” Journal column, in which she facilitates answers to questions/concerns entirely about media landscaping, got me to thinking: Why hasn’t Better Burque written about median landscaping? It took a second cup of coffee, but an answer has been eventually revealed by the magic bean:

Median landscaping and concerns about its inadequacy reflect a way of looking at the transportation world that BB is simply incapable of comprehending. 

In short: I don’t get it.

• You mean instead of addressing the $420 million in identified public curb/sidewalk right-of-way ADA violations, we should spend money instead on watering trees in the medians of our overly wide roads?
• In an arid climate?
• You mean medians are for trees and rocks instead of serving as relative sanctuary for folks trying to cross our overly wide roads?
• But don’t trees and other median features hide folks trying to survive crossing our overly wide roads? Shouldn’t we make these folks as visible as possible?
• You mean the purpose of medians is to maintain/raise property values? E.g., one Journal reader comments that their relatively rockless/treeless medians “look horrible, and this detracts from our home values.”
• Don’t people getting killed/injured trying to drive/walk/roll along/across these unsafe overly wide roads kinda hurt our quality of life, not to mention property values?
• Aren’t the trees and rocks supposed to separate the overly wide road from those walking/rolling along the protected sidewalk as in this photo taken on Avenida da Liberdade in warm temperate sub-tropical Lisbon, Portugal?

• Isn’t lamely trying to recreate idyllic scenes such as above in the medians of our overly wide, hugely dangerous roads, for lack of a better term, kinda dumb?
• And doesn’t that dumb focus prevent us from addressing the very real transportation problems in this city/area, e.g., our hugely dangerous overly wide roads?
• You know the ones written about in Better Burque’s almost 700 posts to this point?

I could be wrong, but my guess is that this will be both the first and last Better Burque blogpost about median landscaping. Thanks to D’val Westphal and her readers at the Journal for bringing up a topic so alien that it’s got me wondering whether I or some other “people” around here are actually from another planet.

And maybe that planet is called “Lisbon.”