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Round and round we go, where we wind up everybody knows.
Of course, we're talking about the downtown roundabout, the second-hottest discussion in Warren these days following only downtown hotels. The eight-year discussion of a roundabout at Market Street and Pennsylvania Avenue continued earlier this week as a new City Council and a new mayor want to have their say on a project first discussed in 2014, approved in 2018 and which has already accrued $1.5 million in design-related expenses.
It's hard to believe that the project is based on need when data shows eight accidents at the intersection over five years. Even Brian McNulty, PennDOT district executive, said safety wasn't initially an issue at Market Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Congestion was the issue that prompted discussion of a roundabout -- in hindsight, was congestion really that big a problem?
People are upset about this project.
We can't disagree with any of the things residents or the council say about the roundabout. But the fact of the matter remains the city and the state have already entered the roundabout, and it's probably too late to get out of it now.
A city that is so reliant on state funding for development projects and has shown no appetite for tax increases is going to have a hard time saying it has the cash to reimburse PennDOT for its expenses on a roundabout that everybody wants to walk away from. Finding the money to reimburse PennDOT calls into question the city's poverty plea to other funders for things like hotels and boat launches.
Warren will continue to talk about the roundabout, but let's face it, we're just going round and round. Where we end up, everybody knows.