Carlisle, affect of highways (Chambersburg, Mechanicsburg: employment, college, live)

[Rtom45]

I'm wondering how the two major roadways that sandwich Carlisle affect the feel of the town. Is the traffic noise obvious throughout or is it contained to the immediate area of the roads? How do these roads affect travel in the town itself? Has Carlisle benefitted from these highways or have they hurt the town? Anything else?

[danwxman]

Good question. This is certainly the most hotly contested and debated issue in the Carlisle area. The borough it self is beautiful architecturally and on the rise...but the constant truck traffic through the town really holds it back. The college has kept the town alive for the past couple decades as the area around Carlisle has absolutely boomed with shopping centers and McMansions. Recently, there has a been a pretty strong downtown movement and new stores and retaurants are opening. But nobody wants to sit at an outdoor cafe and smell the fumes of trucks going by, which is one of the reasons the borough recently approved the "Road Diet" which will reduce High street downtown from two lanes each direction to one lane each direction with a center turn lane and bike lanes. A lot of people in the borough are against it because traffic is already bad...but in the end the borough was built as a walkable town and that should be protected, not automobile traffic.

[BevoInPA]

I think western Cumberland County has entirely too much land zoned for bulk industrial buildings. The trucks are damaging the air quality and make I-81 dangerous. The area from Mechanicsburg to Chambersburg seems to be transforming from farmland to truck terminals and bulk industrial buildings. These facilities don't create a lot of employment and put an unreasonable burden on the freeways.