The challenges of getting sidewalks
The challenges of getting sidewalks
Written by Christi Covington Wednesday, 18 June 2008
When the new middle school is built at FM 1826 and Slaughter Lane, residents in nearby Granada Hills would like the city to have sidewalks ready for children to get back and forth from home.
But whether that can happen or not depends largely on three major factors, according to Mike Curtis, the program manager for the city’s pedestrian and bike program, who gave a presentation at the June 11 meeting of the Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods.
The first factor is funding. Most sidewalk projects are funded by bond money and the last such bond was passed in 2000.
“I have $10 million to work with every few years,” Curtis said.
Austin has miles and miles of sidewalk that needs built or reconstructed. Each sidewalk must be compliant with the American Disability Act—including those built before ADA was passed. That means more than 1,200 linear miles of Austin sidewalk are still noncompliant. It is estimated it would cost $139 million to bring them to standard, as well as another $700 million to construct 5,900 linear miles of missing sidewalk.* That does not include ramp costs.
He added that the second challenge is prioritizing projects because population density is so much greater in the downtown and university area that it makes it difficult to put residential neighborhoods at the forefront of the project list. Curtis said the last factor is ADA itself. Passed in 1990, this living document has evolved by court rulings. Because of the many grade and measurement requirements, it takes an extensive amount of time and finances to catch up to standards. If it is not constructed correctly, state inspectors could make the city start from the beginning. That has not happened in Austin, Curtis said, but it has in others municipalities.
He said the best chance for residential areas such as Oak Hill’s to get in queue for sidewalk projects is to have a neighborhood plan, a process Oak Hill is trying to complete. Another option is for developers or other entities to get involved.
* These calculations assume $5 per square foot for sidewalk construction.
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