HOWLAND Meeting centers on traffic concerns

Alternatives are likely to be presented at another public meeting in April.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
HOWLAND -- Ramona Trevena and Julia Emch live right across state Route 46 from each other, but because of traffic, they have to drive to a light, turn around and head in the opposite direction to pick each other up.
"When we moved there 40 years ago, it was a little, two-lane brick road, and there was hardly any traffic," said Trevena.
"Now I have to go north to turn around and go south," said Emch, who has lived in her township home for 37 years. "Back then, you didn't see as many cars come up 46 all day as you do now in five minutes."
Traffic study
Both women were among those attending a public meeting on the Trumbull-U.S. Route 422 traffic corridor analysis study Thursday at Howland Middle School.
Burgess & amp; Niple of Akron is the engineering firm working on the study on the area around state routes 82 and 46. Thursday's session was to gather information about the public's traffic and safety concerns.
Draft alternatives to the traffic patterns likely will be presented at another meeting in April. A study team made up of representatives of Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, Ohio Department of Transportation, Warren, Niles, Howland and the North Road Preservation Alliance meets monthly and is working on possible configurations.
"One of our concerns is super saturation of retail establishments in the area," said Jack Mullen of the North Road Preservation Alliance and the citizen representative on the study team.
He's also concerned about the preservation of wetlands of Mosquito Creek and the plant and animal species that inhabit them.
"This area is one of the few high quality urban wetlands in northeast Ohio," Mullen said.
Accidents
John Macali, also of Howland, says he sees at least two accidents at the routes 82 and 46 intersection daily.
"I moved there four years ago and four years ago it wasn't this bad," he said. "In the last 21/2 years, traffic has become horrendous."
Macali attributes the congestion to all of the commercial development of recent years and people being in a hurry to get there.
"It's more than the road can handle," he said. "It's too much traffic in a small area."
Trevena and Emch say they don't have any ideas for a solution other than possibly building more roads. They just view it as something they have to deal with.
"We've gotten used to it and we laugh about because there isn't anything else you can do about it," Emch said.