New Middletown is in dire needs of traffic lights

New Middletown is indire needs of traffic lights
EDITOR:
How much longer do the residents of New Middletown and the surrounding Springfield Township area have to wait before traffic signals are installed in the village? There is a desperate need for lights at Calla Road and state Route 170 and Sycamore Drive and Main Street. Rumor has it that a light will be installed at Calla Road and state Route 170 in the fall. Why the wait?
I am tired of the excuses that are repeatedly heard for not receiving a traffic light at the Sycamore Drive/170 intersection. Currently, a caution light there is useless.
Exiting from Woodland Drive onto state Route 170 near Sycamore at times requires a great deal of patience and a high level of alertness because of the traffic.
The traffic flow through the New Middletown has increased at an alarming rate, especially with the multitude of huge dump trucks. Traffic lights would assist in slowing down all traffic, but especially the trucks that seem to ignore the posted 25 mph speed limit.
The New Middletown Library is being relocated to a new area that is much more congested than its present location. I would hate to see a school child injured trying to reach the new library. Once again, traffic signals would help with the traffic congestion as well as slow the traffic.
I feel it is high time that our village and township officials take the necessary steps to see that traffic signals are installed. This writer and others of like mind are running out of patience.
ARTHUR H. DAVIS
New Middletown
Western Reserve Road workis a nightmare for Route 224
EDITOR:
I want to voice my concern over the Western Reserve Road construction project. Your recent article on the delays talks about the many reasons that progress has been slow.
My assumptions when this project was bid out was that it was a 45-day work schedule, which would have put completion around the first week of June. Now you're saying this is not going to be completed until November at the earliest.
Even if you doubled the expected 45 days to complete this job, that would have only taken you until some time around the beginning of August. We have not had that much rain to delay it to a date as late as November.
Having this road and Shields Road closed at the same time has created a nightmare on Route 224. Given all the problems this project is creating, that contractor should be motivated to step up progress on the completion of Western Reserve Road, or the county should find ways to speed that project up. This project is not a major engineering project. It is merely road work that should be completed in a timely and efficient manner.
DENNIS HAGEMAN
Canfield
Though advice is ignored,here's more for Youngstown
EDITOR:
Twenty-plus years ago I wrote to The Vindicator citing the mess I saw happening to downtown Youngstown. The one-way street, the welfare downtown, the steel mill sculpture in front of the welfare department and the closing of traffic on Federal Street. Studies were supposedly done and much money was spent making the mess. I gave my opinion for free, and all these years later, everything I mentioned has been reversed.
Now, without a feasibility study, without charging you thousands of dollars, I am allowing you to know that the present design of traffic is once again idiotic. Why is it so hard to just open Federal Street and allow the traffic to flow?
Also, I recently read that the Mahoning County commissioners favor putting the welfare department back downtown. That would be a big mistake for Youngstown. The welfare department should have a private facility such as Oakhill Renaissance building or the old Cafaro Hospital, where parking would not be an issue and the littering and loitering could be contained.
Once again, I am giving my free advice to building a better Youngstown.
ADELINE FIELDS
Youngstown