WARREN North Road proposal draws public interest

The county engineer's department will spend a few weeks reviewing the comments.
WARREN -- Critics of theTrumbull County Engineer's plan to widen North Road have delivered hundreds of comment cards to county commissioners and the project's Akron engineer.
The public comment period for the estimated $3 million planned improvements to North Road between East Market Street and U.S. Route 422 was to end today. A proposal presented earlier this month included filling roadside ditches, and adding sidewalks and a center turning lane for the length of the 1.7-mile stretch, said Joe Kovach, and engineer at the county department.
It would also involve buying land to widen the 50-foot road right-of-way by 5 feet on either side, and cutting down some trees that are in the right-of-way and on adjacent lawns.
"We were hoping with our proposal that everybody likes us ... and we would enter final design," Kovach said.
The county department will spend a few weeks reviewing the comments and coming up with possible alternatives, he said. "We hope to get at some solution that the majority of people like."
Comments pouring in: On Thursday, Jack Mullen, a North Road resident and spokesman for a group of citizens concerned about the project, hand-delivered what he said were 600 written comments to the Akron offices of Finkbeiner, Petits and Strout, Inc., which is engineering the project. Copies also were brought to the offices of the county commissioners.
A spokesman for the commissioners said they were checking with the county prosecutor regarding their authority over the project, which has been earmarked for $1 million federal funding. Money will also come from the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, and the county will contribute about $600,000, Kovach said.
The current proposal had a time line that included a year spent buying rights-of-way and road work over two construction seasons beginning in 2004.