After attending the Western Avenue improvement meeting at Highland School Wednesday night I felt a need to express some thoughts to the PulseLine for the first time. First it would have been nice if Mayor Knapik had attended this meeting, I hope he is at the next one. The southwest quadrant of this city is a great part of Westfield, great neighborhoods, an awesome park and a beautiful University. We and our elected officials must remember the heart and soul of Westfield is its residents, not any one business or school. This whole project seems to be driven by the city meeting WSU needs and not the impact it will have on its neighborhoods. I am all in favor of the improvements to the roadway, intersections, sidewalks, crosswalks and utilities. What we don’t need are more traffic lights, islands, and turning lanes that will compromise the integrity and safety of this beautiful avenue. Mr. Cressotti spoke of the changes making the avenue safer, wrong, it will only increase the speed of the WSU commuters. Western Avenue is not that busy of a street when the school is out and the locals are not the abusive drivers using it. Simple solution to the root of this problem, commuter parking lots on Russell Rd. Route 20 is much better suited to handle the heavy traffic of class starts and releases. I don’t want to hear from WSU & the City why this can’t be done, it can be done, the powers to be just need to figure how to get it done. The residents of Cross St had a school forced upon them; the residents of the Western Avenue should not let this administration force upon them changes that are not acceptable to our area. If we are not heard now, then we shall have to speak again at the next election. Do you hear that?
PS Leave the trees!
