Tie-ups start at engineer’s office

Tie-ups start at engineer’s office

The traffic congestion on Western Reserve Road, South Avenue, and McClurg Road described in a June 8 letter can be contributed to the decision by the Mahoning County Engineer’s Office, with the approval of the Mahoning County commissioners in approving spending $6 million on the expansion of Western Reserve Road to Route 62. When this was proposed, I was strongly against this expenditure and suggested the $6 million should have been utilized on expanding the Western Reserve Road from Glenwood Avenue to South Avenue.

The engineer’s office has constantly spent our valuable tax dollars on unnecessary road projects within Mahoning County instead of easing traffic congestion with those valuable funds. Other major roads which should be improved and expanded are Southern Boulevard from Market Street to Western Reserve Road and Shields Road from South Avenue to Tippecanoe Road. The traffic on these three roads exceeds by many times the traffic on the proposed WWR widening.

As far as traffic lights, there are traffic lights that are unnecessary and should be changed to stop signs. The engineer’s office never took advantage of the availability of LED Signals from ODOT. Also, these traffic lights should incorporate the Laser beam signal, such as those on some South Avenue and Shields Road traffic lights.

The county engineer’s office never kept up with major expansion within Mahoning County and the county commissioners never override any traffic project proposed by the present engineer’s office.

Neil D. Frasca, Austintown