Lady Bird Johnson’s pet program to beautify...

Lady Bird Johnson’s pet program to beautify the nation’s highways is losing its luster, a victim of money cutbacks and bureaucratic indifference, the government reported. The result is that since the former First Lady’s tree-planting spree spawned the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, many of the nation’s federally funded interstate highways are still studded with billboards, according to a General Accounting Office report. In fact, 30,000 new billboards were to be erected legally in 1983 alone, the report said.