Widening of Route 46 will hurt Austintown

Widening of Route 46will hurt Austintown
EDITOR:
As I drive along South Canfield-Niles Road, I see the natural beauty disappearing to make way for a five-lane highway. Is it my imagination, or will it be coming dangerously close to some of the structures along this road? I recall a concern of some residents at the initial 20/20 meetings, myself included; namely, that Austintown would become overdeveloped like other areas and have all the problems that they are now trying to fix. This new highway may well lead to this very concern.
Granted, something needed to be done to improve the traffic flow on state Route 46, but not to this extreme. This five-lane highway changes into two lanes at New New Road. With synchronized traffic lights and turning lanes, a three-lane road would have done the job nicely. It would have been much safer to cross only one lane of traffic instead of two when turning. This type of plan was used in widening Rt. 224 in Canfield and the result looks beautiful. But, instead, we will have an obtrusive five-lane highway that, in my opinion, will look totally out of context in this area and detract from our sense of community and the character of our town.
More importantly, however, are safety and quality of living issues from the residents and churches, homes for elderly and disabled plus businesses and neighborhoods on Route 46. You would think that these things would take precedence over the dollar amount of a road project.
What a shame that someone did not see the potential for beautiful gateways into Austintown from the south and the north, with trees, lighted sidewalks and possibly even a bikeway, whereby residents could have enjoyed their community more. Instead, there will be no safe place to even walk and we can look forward to more traffic accidents, pollution, flooding and crime when this area is all commercialized.
I guess I should just be thankful I don't have the new water tower in my backyard, and I sympathize with those who do. Many times progress can be good, but not when it consumes the environment to the point where it's detrimental to the people who already live there.
If one could change their environment as easily as the birds, you could fly out to the peaceful countryside and make a new home, except, pretty soon there won't be any countryside or trees for that matter! Besides, most people are just happy to improve or preserve what they have. With some of the happenings here recently, though, I sincerely hope that it's not the beginning of the end of "Home Sweet Home" in Austintown, Ohio.
LINDA J. GREEN
Austintown
If you want to talk about building a useful fence ...
EDITOR:
I see that the government has proposed putting a fence along a portion of our border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants.
Has anyone thought of putting up fences around the Statehouse and governor's mansion in Columbus, to keep Republicans out this fall before they totally destroy the Buckeye state? Just wondering.
TIM O'HARA
Canfield