The surf is always up when you leave Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport and get on the connector to Route 95.

The rolling wave display, created by vertical blue pipes of varying height is the icing to a $12.9 million project to enhance this gateway to Rhode Island.

“The Director asked project management to create a beautiful gateway that was consistent with what was already there but had some of the sparkle of Disney. Most importantly, it needed to be a welcoming gateway to the state,” RIDOT spokeswoman Lisbeth Pettengill explained in an email. The connector repaving and beautification, Pettengill said, is on time and on budget.

The wave that runs down the highway divider greets motorists as they get on the connector. It extends for about a quarter-mile.

According to the DOT website the overall “project is a massive landscaping design effort to create a visually appealing vista.” It includes the planting of 400 trees and plants in both the median and the shoulder. At the time of the announcement the plantings included Autumn Blaze Maples, Blue Spruce, Ginkos, Hummingbird Summersweet bushes, Rhododendron and Forsythia.

Much of the landscaping has been completed along with the repaving of the connector.

“The State looked at plantings that would be viable and appealing for this location as a welcome to RI,” Pettengill said. “The choices were made to coordinate well with existing plantings, to be hardy enough to survive in an urban environment, and to be visually appealing. Also we try to use native plants as they do much better than those that are not native to (Rhode Island).”

“The Airport Connector is the gateway to Rhode Island for many visitors,” reads the project description on the DOT website. “It is the first road they experience when arriving at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport and the last road before they depart. RIDOT wanted to make this road not only safe and smooth but also beautiful with landscaping that would blend seamlessly with plantings at the airport terminal.”

The repaving of Post Road, which was part of the project when announced in June 2022, has not been completed. A northern stretch of the road in Norwood and Lakewood was done this past summer.  Under an agreement with Mayor Frank Picozzi the city would share in $800,000 of the cost of repaving Post Road south of the connector overpass to Greenwood Bridge.

In an email Tuesday Pettergill wrote that the state still has to pave from Coronado to Elmwood Avenue on Post Road, that the project is shutdown for the winter and will restart in the spring.

“What is left on the enhancement part of the project is installing the gateway sign, installing the Discover RI sign, the sculptural fencing and loam and seed,” she said. “Some of this has to be done in the spring.”

Asked about the Post Road work Tuesday, Mayor Picozzi noted Cardi Construction had the contract to do the work, speculating that because of issues faced by the company the job wasn’t completed.