BOISE, Idaho — First impressions count for motorists tooling through a city.

We blazed through Idaho’s capital city in our Prius and noticed something I wish our highway builders in Amarillo would grasp. The city of Boise and the Idaho transportation department have done a marvelous job of dressing up highway interchanges.

Do you hear me, Texas Department of Transportation? Your colleagues in Idaho have done something you seem unable to do.

Interstate 84, the main east-west thoroughfare through Boise is decked out in native Idaho wildflowers. I cannot identify them for you. I’ll just say they are gorgeous. The arrangements on the interchanges are attractive. They leave motorists just passing through — such as my wife and me — with good thoughts.

The Interstate 40/27 interchange in Amarillo is a mess. There’s no other way to describe it. The only thing TxDOT did correctly with the highway was to paint the concrete in colors that approximate the hues seen in Palo Duro and Caprock canyons. So there you have it.

Nothing else is appealing to the motorist roaring through Amarillo. Nothing. Zero.

My question to TxDOT once again is this: Why can’t you do something to make the interchanges more eye-friendly to the thousands of motorists whose only view of Amarillo will from an automobile roaring through town at 65 mph?

Call your brethren in Boise to see how it’s done.