Victor Wakelin
Period 3
http://www.theforecaster.net/news/print/2014/11/19/yarmouth-tackle-future-route-1-overpass/217385

The central claim of the editorial is that there is a very large debate over whether the Route 1 bridge crossing over Main Street should be kept or removed. This article does not favor one side over the other, but instead expresses the opinions of people on both sides of the argument. While there aren’t many people who think the bridge should be removed, according to the article, those people are fighting hard against the majority, saying that the town would benefit, mainly economically, if Route 1 intersected at ground level with Main Street. Those people say that bringing Route 1 traffic to Main Street level would attract more customers to our local businesses. The majority of people, however, say that removing the bridge would severely hurt the town in many ways. Their main point is that removing the bridge would detract from Yarmouth’s “small town feeling” and culture as there would be increased and faster traffic crossing Main Street from Route 1. 

The evidence from both sides of this argument comes from the residents and business owners of Yarmouth, along with the town’s councilors and directors. A couple significant quotes regarding the issue comes from town manager Nat Tupper. He spoke about the feelings of people on both sides of the issue. On one side, he said that “people who want the bridge to come down say it will ‘provide a calming, slow (traffic) flow’ through Yarmouth and would make the town more cohesive.” On the other hand, he said that “People are afraid that instead of making Route 1 more like Main Street, it would make Main Street more like Route 1.” 

My opinion is that bringing Route 1 traffic down to Main Street level would dramatically hurt the culture of our town. Instead of being able to ignore the traffic going overhead, we would have to deal with a massive number of cars crossing Main Street. Plus, having no bridge would basically bisect Main Street and the entire town, making it much more complicated to get from one side to the other. One of the great things about Yarmouth is that we have a beautiful Main Street with homes, businesses, and public buildings that can easily be accessed without having to deal with city-like traffic from a major highway. It is something that our town is lucky to have, and something that makes our town unique. Removing this bridge and allowing fast, busy traffic to flow right across our Main Street would make our town much less attractive, not to mention unsafe for all the pedestrians that use the street on a daily basis. Plus, it would make Yarmouth feel more like a city than a small town. I don’t think it would make sense to remove something that would make our town feel less like a small town and community. We are fortunate that we live in a town that actually feels like a town, with a great downtown and great culture. It would be very unfortunate if all of that disappeared with the removal of a single bridge.