In a letter sent last month to the Syracuse Common Council, Holland Gregg, executive director of Citizens to Preserve the Character of Skaneateles, wrote that replacing the I-81 elevated highway in Syracuse with a boulevard and re-routing I-81 traffic around the city would be “a huge setback for the Finger Lakes Region.”
Gregg wrote that “[i]t is our sincerest hope that the Common Council will guide the highway developers in this direction and not settle for the ‘boulevard’ plan in its present form.”
CPCS is concerned that a boulevard would undermine its years of hard work to reduce large truck traffic on local roads:
“We believe that re-routing Route 81 eastward to the Route 481 / Interstate 90 interchange will not be helpful to the 25-year effort by the villages and towns throughout the Finger Lakes to mitigate large truck traffic on the secondary roads. It has been exceedingly difficult to create the incentives for out-of-town trash truckers and interstate haulers to stick to the highways that were designed for the large trucks. Despite our best efforts, the problems still persist.”
CPCS supports a plan that would increase ease of access to Syracuse for all, while not inundating surrounding towns with more traffic. Gregg wrote:
“CPCS believes it is possible to build a new road system that will benefit, not just a key few players in Syracuse, but the entire region.”
It is our sincerest hope that the Common Council will guide the highway developers in this direction and not settle for the “boulevard” plan in its present form. It would be a huge disservice to the greater Fingers Lakes Region.