Letter to the Editor: The Edgewood Road Project: A Huge Mistake

The “Edgewood Road Project” is supposed to provide a route from south Mount Vernon to the east side of the Coshocton Road retail district and east that will end the growing problem of drivers increasingly using neighborhood streets like Edgewood, Teryl, Marita, Stevens, Vernedale, Vernonview and New Gambier as short cuts to avoid congestion on Coshocton Road to get to the hospital, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Knox Village Square, nearby restaurants, Danbury Living Center, Knox Public Health and Apple Valley. The problem will get worse as the City continues to expand east with a new fire station and developments east of the health department that will add 826 new residential units on Coshocton Road. 

The solution is to reduce the amount of traffic on Coshocton and Edgewood Roads by creating a connector route to Coshocton on the EAST SIDE OF THE BUSINESS DISTRICT. Unfortunately, the administration’s solution, “The Edgewood Road Project,” is to reconstruct Edgewood and extend it to Coshocton Road. That won’t work! First, extending Edgewood will connect to Coshocton on the WEST SIDE OF THE RETAIL DISTRICT, NOT EAST. Secondly, the Edgewood Road Project will funnel MORE, NOT LESS TRAFFIC to Coshocton and Edgewood Roads and adjacent neighborhood streets.

“If you build it, they will come”…but where will they go? Like now, traffic using an “improved” Edgewood Road will either go to Coshocton Road, the east side of the Coshocton business district or further east, but with one big difference, there will be a lot more traffic! Adding traffic on Coshocton by extending Edgewood to Coshocton will INCREASE CONGESTION on both streets. Drivers won’t use Edgewood to access the east end of the business district or further east because entering Coshocton on the west side will require them to travel east on Coshocton to get to their destination. To avoid congestion, drivers will CONTINUE TO USE NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS along Edgewood! But, due to “improvements” to Edgewood, there will be more traffic using those streets and assuming people going someplace ultimately return, that additional traffic will be multiplied times 2! More neighborhoods destroyed, home values lost, more lives disrupted. For what purpose, to whose benefit? 

A proposed solution that not only fails to resolve the problem it was supposed to fix but makes it worse is NOT A SOLUTION, it’s a MISTAKE! The “Edgewood Road Project” Resolution – Please Vote “NO” on Nov. 5. 

Don Carr 

Mount Vernon