Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Thanks for the nice feature on Emily Allen, director of the Mathews Visitor Center and the fine work MCVIC is doing to spread the word about our community (“Allen works to keep Mathews on the tourism map,” Aug. 23, 2018 Gazette-Journal).

We enjoyed the abbreviated Market Days as always this year but we are becoming victims of our own success; it sure was busy this year crossing Main Street and dodging cars and trucks on Church Street. 

We want to endorse the suggestion from many others that the time has come to plan the exact location for a connection between Buckley Hall and Tabernacle roads parallel to and east of Main Street (maybe with an extension of Church (Maple) Street someday to intersect it). This will allow traffic passing through the courthouse area to be diverted entirely around the Market Days crowds and similar events.

If we want visitors to keep coming we have to accommodate them—and ourselves—by planning for the...