Letters to the editor for Thursday, May 16

Taypayers won’t get bang for their buck with Carson Street

The downtown renovation of Carson Street sounds good, but serves roughly 25 consumer businesses and the rest are lawyers, state and county buildings. Just who is getting the biggest bang for their buck? It sure is not the taxpayers.

This brings up many questions as to who is going to use the parking spaces, public workers? Are they going to limit parking time? Who is going to enforce the time limit, parking enforcement? Do we have such a department? Are we going to add parking meters and then have enforcement check for violators? Is the city going to be ready for those $5,000 lawsuits filed by wayward jaywalkers and casino patrons crossing Carson Street and tripping or something?

One lane with parallel parking is a traffic nightmare with long trucks, bad drivers and in and out vehicles coming and going, all causing stop and go traffic. This is the reality of the future Carson Street. Locals and north/south drivers are going to avoid it like the plague and the visitors are going to do what? Antique shopping, drink coffee and eat, maybe a little walk around the capitol grounds.

Let’s be real, Carson Street is not loaded with department stores and other shopping experiences. At least the current configuration allows locals and visitors to stop and shop when they want or hurry and get home.

Royce Tuckness

Carson City

Get people downtown, then narrow street

I find it unbelievable that our city fathers would allow a small group of merchants to convince them that our beautiful wrought iron fencing should be removed from downtown.

Approximately 18 years ago, we residents and business people of Carson City met for a “beautification meeting” at the Carson Nugget. The main purpose of this meeting was to discuss the impact of the pending bypass on the downtown area. If traffic lessened then we needed ideas on bringing folks to the area. We moved forward on adding the fencing, lamp posts and flowers for a start.

The bypass has not been completed, therefore, the traffic impact downtown is not known. I understand the elimination of the fencing is the first step to making Carson a two lane street, parallel parking and easy access to the shops located on Carson Street. We need shops that will bring the tourists and locals to the area. We need events, residential housing, i.e. apartments and townhouses in order to keep our downtown alive!

What is the rush in making drastic changes to our traffic flow at this time?

Do we really want a two-lane street through downtown with parallel parking? How many can parallel park, if at all? And how about emergency equipment? Stewart and Curry streets would be an option if they are not impacted due to drivers avoiding Carson Street.

Let’s get some activities and people downtown before we make major changes to our street. Let common sense prevail!

Mary Burgoon

Carson City