Letter To The Editor (essay #1)

January 30, 2007

The Ahwatukee Republic
106 E. Baseline Road
Mesa, AZ 85210
Fax (480) 516-0112

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to the editorial “Freeway no help to Foothills traffic; funds better spent elsewhere,” of Jan. 24, which is written in response to the editorial “Freeway must get past planning stage,” of Jan 18.
I am a nineteen-year-old college student who has lived in Ahwatukee for the last fourteen years. I agree with Patrick Panetta, the author of “Freeway no help to Foothills traffic; funds better spent elsewhere.” I think that if the proposed freeway connecting Pecos rd. to 55th Avenue were built it would not help the congestion around the Broadway Curve. Mr. Panetta said it perfectly “The congestion that backs up from the Broadway Curve onto U.S. 60 and I-10, is not…due to the sheer volume of traffic, but rather to the transition of merging two four-lane freeways into one five-lane freeway.” If ADOT built the proposed freeway it would be used as more of a bypass for trucks going from Los Angeles to El Paso.
If the freeway was built, I highly doubt that the majority of people from Ahwatukee are going to drive all the way out to 55th Avenue just to have to sit in eastbound traffic trying to get into downtown Phoenix. As it is right now, most people work in or around the downtown area. So unless ADOT can find a way to fix the mess they made of the merge, the problem of the congested traffic is still going to be just that, a problem.
Even if the freeway is built it will not help with the number of vehicles going around the Broadway Curve. So there is no need to build this freeway, it will only bring crime, noise, and more pollution to the Ahwatukee area, and it will lower the value of the homes in Ahwatukee. To top it off it will cost us taxpayers $1.7 billion dollars, for something that is not going to help Ahwatukee residents with the congestion around the Broadway Curve.
Maybe in the future, the building of this freeway would help, but it is not needed now! We have and always will be known as the “giant cul-de-sac.” Lets keep it that way.

Sincerely,



Tropical Girl
123 E. Island Ave
Maui, HA 12345