Youngstown to close about 4 miles of streets in old Shar line area
YOUNGSTOWN
The city plans to close 3.9 miles of uninhabited streets, or parts thereof, on the East Side within the next few months and let them go back to nature.
Where possible, the city also plans to shut off unneeded water and sewer lines in the isolated area as part of the effort, known as the Sharonline Decommissioning Project.
The area is named for a Youngstown-Sharon, Pa., streetcar line that ran along Jacobs Road from 1900 to 1939.
Before the streets are closed, nine abandoned houses on them will be demolished using city demolition funds, and the city street department will coordinate cleaning up refuse dumped there.
Once the demolitions and cleanup are completed, the streets will be blocked with guardrails bolted to posts.
“This is, more or less, just to lessen the burden of the city to have to service certain areas,” said William A. D’Avignon, city community development and planning director.
The closings will relieve the city of having to provide police patrols, street repaving or snow and ice removal there.
Illegal refuse dumping there will be stopped; the city won’t have to service closed water or sewer lines; and its wastewater treatment plant will be relieved of some combined storm and sanitary sewer flow from those areas, city officials said.
“A lot of these streets pretty much have outlived their useful lives,” Mayor John A. McNally said.
Read more about the effort in Tuesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.