Check another ‘road diet’

Mr. Vestal says in his April 16 column, “It’s hard to imagine the changes that are almost certainly coming to the North Monroe corridor,” He doesn’t have to imagine. Go look at what was done to Hawthorne Road between North Waikiki Road and Highway 2. The number of lanes was reduced to one each direction with a turn lane. The curbs were bumped out into what used to be a travel lane. Now congestion is so bad at times that it takes up to three light cycles to get through the intersections at Hawthorne and Whitworth Drive and/or Division.

No more free right turns on a red light unless you’re first in line and bus stops that now stall traffic. Due to the congestion traffic now races through the neighborhood streets because there are no stoplights. As for the “door-to-door” driving, isn’t that what a major arterial is for? What this project will do is make it harder to get downtown and push traffic onto other streets that are even less capable of handling the increase.

Will Whitcomb

Spokane