Pedestrian safety needs crossing light and caution

Pedestrian safety needs crossing light and caution
EDITOR:
I'm waiting for it to happen again. Somebody else is going to get hurt trying to cross a crosswalk, perhaps again in front of North Side Hospital, where at less a dozen cars will pass while people are standing there waiting for one to stop so they can cross.
A lot of people leaving the hospital, visitors and workers, do not use the crosswalk. They like to try to cross Gypsy Lane from the driveway about 20 feet from the crosswalk, just to be able to go directly into the parking lot entrance, even as cars are coming out.
When is a crossing light going to be put up? When someone is killed? The hospital should have had that light put in a long time ago. But the people on the board probably have their own parking spaces and do not have to cross a street.
More people, but not many, use the crosswalk in front of North Side Hospital than the one in front of Ursuline High School.
Students coming out of school walk right out of the driveway and go directly across Wick Avenue to the parking lot. Some will even stand right on the curb waiting for traffic to clear. One slip of the foot and they will fall in front of a passing vehicle. Guess who will get the blame? The motorist.
It is not just the students of the school. If you are driving by Ursuline High School during Monday-night bingo or when an event is going on, watch for the adults. They are just as bad at crossing Wick Avenue, if not worse. They will come out of an event with their children and just take them right across the street instead of teaching them to use the crosswalk and wait for traffic to clear.
Are they in such a hurry to beat the traffic that they are willing to risk their lives and the lives of their children? The pain of losing a child is not worth trying to save a few minutes.
One other reason to look both ways downtown is that some drivers like to make U-turns there instead of going around the block.
I'm sure that when most people were young their parents always told them to look both ways before crossing the street and to cross only at the corners and crosswalks.
If adults don't do it right in front of their children, why should they.
WALTER SHOENBERGER
Youngstown
Soon, there'll be nothing left of Valley's history
EDITOR:
A couple of days ago I drove over to the former Idora Ballroom and noticed some people standing along the fence, observing the park and what was left of it.
I thought that all we do in this Valley is "observe."
While cities save their culture and history so we can visit their buildings on our vacations and then come back here to "observe," more history disappears from our Valley.
Look around at the history in this Valley. It is all gone.
The blast furnace at Brier Hill which was to be a museum, the theaters downtown -- gone. The famous old buildings downtown, gone. Idora gone, the train station gone and on and on.
Our students at YSU -- educated here, leave here and are gone.
If we all look into ourselves and "observe," we find out it is all of us who don't care about this Valley.
At least we now have a new possible historical site in Austintown, called the "Mill," where they can get a real sense of our history by finding indoors, working smokestacks. There is probably more history in the new night club, than in our Valley.
At least we can observe the "Mill" now.
LOUIS YAWORSKY
Boardman