drive it with confidence", said automotive writer David E. Davis. "There are no bad surprises about the way the road is engineered." Landscape architect Garret Eckbo called the Taconic "as lovely an integration of highway engineering and landscape architecture as one could hope to find". Commenting on this years later, architecture critic Matthew Gandy wrote: In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with sections of the road modified from its original design and the rest areas mostly gone, writers for The New York Times have variously described the Taconic as "a pleasure to use, evoking those bygone days when people went for a drive just for the fun of it" and "unquestionably among the most scenic roadways in the Northeast, winding along the Hudson Valley with a painter's eye for landscape and a gearhead's idea of fun." The Lonely Planet New York State guidebook calls it a "highway masterpiece". Engineering The parkway's engineering principles evolved over the four decades it took to build, with northern sections reflecting improvements in construction technology and lessons learned from the early days of construction. Some aspects of the original road remained consistent from end to end. The Westchester County sections were laid out by the county's parks commission based on the parkways they had already designed. Its engineers later worked on the design of the upper sections. In its early days, the Taconic State Parks Commission (TSPC) lacked the money to hire a full engineering staff, in spite of terrain that presented some major challenges. Its engineer, E.J. Howe, on loan from the state's Department of Public Works (DPW), frequently complained about the commission's directive that he plan a route only where it had the land or expected to buy it, instead of planning a route and then buying the land. He also began negotiations with landowners, and his position was eliminated from the commission's budget after three years. His successor clashed with his superiors as well, and after he left in 1933 the commission relied on state DPW engineers for the rest of the construction. Most of the original parkway was surfaced in reinforced concrete. Officials favored it despite its higher initial cost as compared to asphalt since it was less likely to need repair over its 50-year lifespan and reflected more light at night, improving safety. Asphalt was used for repaving of segments to the south; today the original concrete remains