Letter: Southwest resident opposes sidewalks

I've lived on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids for 15 years. Over the past year, the city has been telling the residents of the neighborhood that we need sidewalks and a narrower street.

The first letter we received was about redoing the water main and repaving the street. Later we got a letter saying that we were getting sidewalks and a much narrower street. The project will need to take up a lot of our front yards and remove many trees to do this at our expense. Ridiculous! First of all, these trees have a huge environmental impact to the people and animals who live in this neighborhood. Second, nobody walks these streets. I'm home during the day as I work the second shift and I see what goes on.

We've had city council members out here to walk these streets and see for themselves how the neighborhood is laid out. I went on both those walks with many other people of the neighborhood along with the council members. I listened to what the people said and also the responses of the council members who came out. The comments from the council members were positive and hopeful that this wasn't a good idea at all. I guess that was just to pacify us for the time being. It seems like every time we seem to make some headway on this issue, the next thing we know we're back to square one.

I would like to see this issue resolved.

Mike Knutson

Cedar Rapids