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mailmanDo you remember? Probably not.

Way back in 1968 a limited-access highway corridor was laid out between Warren Rd. and Cortland. The goal was to provide an economic boost to the region by connecting it directly to Interstate 81 via a 55 mph 4-lane limited-access highway.

Meanwhile, people were killing each other at the grade crossing of Route 13 at Triphammer Rd. Traffic lights had only very recently replaced the original stop signs. Eventually, after much foot-dragging, many hearings, endless studies and general dilly-dallying while more lives were lost, an overpass was constructed at Triphammer.

Last week, history repeated itself. A number of us attended a hearing to consider "improvements" to the Warren Rd./Route 13 intersection serving sluggish services like UPS, USPS, FedEx, the Tompkins County Sheriff, the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport, the Convenient Care complex, BOCES, DeWitt Middle School, none of which have schedules to keep or ever experience life-threatening emergencies.

Residents and visitors bump into each other at a rate 5 times the average for similar intersections in New York State at the Warren Road crossing. So what to do? Well, one of the options was to plant trees on the median. Yet more targets for texting motorists!

Was an overpass one of the options, either short or long term? Absolutely not.

The outcome at the Warren/Rt. 13 intersection will be the same as that for the Triphammer Rd. intersection. An overpass will be constructed. Will your family members be among those killed at the grade crossing in the meantime?

Let's get off our duff and build the Warren Rd. overpass now! We all know we will. The only question is how many of us will die or be injured there in the meantime.

Jeff Diver
Ithaca, NY
v16i37
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