Tag: sidewalk repair

Denver’s approach to sidewalk maintenance

Dan Allison3 Comments

Denver is implementing a unique approach to sidewalk maintenance (Denver’s Sidewalk Program). Rather than making the individual property owner responsible for sidewalk maintenance, the city will charge all property owners a fee which will be pooled city-wide to maintain or install sidewalks. It is a flat fee for most parcels, but with a progressive fee based on sidewalk footage for parcels with a lot of sidewalk.

The City of Sacramento, and most governments in California, make sidewalk maintenance the responsibility of individual property owners. State law allows this, though does not require it. You can see the results for yourself: broken sidewalks due to root heaves, discontinuous sidewalks, lack of ADA ramps. And the city and cities within the county and the county are not the worst in California. If you want to see truly horrible sidewalks, visit the City of Los Angeles, where root heaves from too narrow sidewalk buffers have broken or destroyed most sidewalks in the city.

Denver, recognizing that the model of individual property owners paying was not working, and under the threat of lawsuits, decided to take a different approach, making maintenance and installation the responsibility of all property owners. This is an immense improvement over the Sacramento and California model, though still falls short.

Sidewalks are a part of our transportation network, in fact are the most important part of that network. As such, they should be maintained, and gaps filled, as part of the regular transportation budget of cities, counties and the state. Making them a special case with special funding, or ignoring them completely, leads to a deteriorated and missing sidewalk network that actively discriminates against people who use the sidewalks to walk, roll, and, in some cases, bicycle. Every broken sidewalk and every missing sidewalk is a abject failure of the government to fulfill its responsibility to citizens to create a transportation system that serves everyone. Transportation engineers will always, if given the choice, prioritize motor vehicles over everyone and everything else, so we must compel them to meet their true responsibilities.

photo of broken sidewalk and missing sidewalk, Capitol Mall & 3rd St, Sacramento
broken sidewalk and missing sidewalk, Capitol Mall & 3rd St, Sacramento

SacBee: sidewalk repair

Dan Allison3 Comments

The SacBee published an article in January entitled ‘$20k? Homeowners in some Sacramento neighborhoods are billed more for sidewalk repair‘. The article is about the charges the City of Sacramento has made to homeowners, primarily in low income areas.

City code specifies that property owners are completely responsible for repair of sidewalks adjacent to their property. State streets and highways code seems to allow the city to claim this. The two relevant sections within Chapter 22: Maintenance of Sidewalks are: Article 2. Repairs and Article 3. Collection of Cost of Repair. I have previously made the claim that both state code and city code are unconstitutional, because they make persons responsible for maintenance of property that belongs to the city, not the person. In almost all cases, sidewalks and the land on which they lie is city property, not private property. This is particularly egregious when the sidewalk damage is due to city-owned trees in the sidewalk buffer (which the city calls planting strips).

Therefore, I believe that it is illegal for the city to charge property owners for sidewalk repair.

The major focus of the article is that low income communities are being unfairly targeted for sidewalk repair, with a graph that indicates that. That is one interpretation of the data, and it would not be surprising. The city has always and continues to treat lower income communities and people of color with bias. There is another explanation however. Sidewalks in lower income communities were very likely built to lower standards than in others, and it is likely that the city has never maintained any of them, except in some locations placing ADA ramps at corners. I notice in the central city that many sidewalk cracks are covered with asphalt patches, which were placed by the city. I have not noticed these patches in lower income neighborhoods. It is likely that the city is doing work in moderate and high income areas that they are not doing in lower income areas. The central city has more construction projects than other areas, which often result in the sidewalks being repaired or replaced. The central city has also seen a lot more installation of new corners with ADA ramps that other areas of the city. This makes some sense because much of the central city has higher pedestrian (walker) levels, but this fact does not overcome the fact that there are walkers in disinvested neighborhoods, and in particular, children walking to and from school deserve good sidewalks more than anyone else.

I have been in the habit of reporting sidewalk issues through the city’s 311 app. This article has made me rethink reporting. Am I causing unaffordable repair bills for people who can’t afford it? Is the sidewalk flaw really that bad? I’ve decided to stop reporting sidewalk locations, until these issues are resolved.

My next steps are to make a suggestion for how the city can mitigate these repair costs, and for the city to inventory its sidewalks so that it knows what the situation is throughout the city, rather than a complaint-driven system that is almost certain to have bias. Coming up!

photo of broken sidewalk, V St, Sacramento
broken sidewalk, V St, Sacramento
photo of sidewalk repaired due to damage by a city owned tree in a city owner sidewalk buffer, P St
sidewalk repaired due to damage by a city owned tree in a city owner sidewalk buffer, P St

SacCity sidewalk responsibility

Dan Allison3 Comments

Before delving into street design, I must come back to the question of whose responsibility it is to maintain sidewalks. I’ve talked about this before, Sacramento and sidewalks, but it bears repeating. It also deserves a citizen movement to force the city to change policy.

photo of deteriorated sidewalk, 24th St near Capitol Ave
deteriorated sidewalk, 24th St near Capitol Ave, Sacramento

Take a look at the city’s Sidewalks, Curbs & Gutters page. Unless you are a confirmed windshield perspectives, cars-first and cars-only person, I think it will strike you as strange.

Start with the opening paragraph, which tells a lie. “Within the City of Sacramento, there are approximately 2,300 miles of sidewalk. Sacramento City Code, section 12.32, and California Streets & Highway Code 5610 requires that the maintenance and repair of public sidewalks be the responsibility of the property owner.” Streets and Highways code does NOT require that maintenance be the responsibility of the property owner. It simple allows a city to try to make it the responsibility of the property owner. Not all cities do that. But Sacramento has decided that shifting responsibility for transportation infrastructure in the public right-of-way to property owners fits the model of car dominance that is essentially city policy.

Let me offer some paragraphs, with the only change being replacement of ‘sidewalk’ with ‘street’.

“…requires that the maintenance and repair of public streets be the responsibility of the property owner.… If the property owner does not take action in one of the above three ways, the City will make repairs under default and the cost will be collected from the property owner. Unpaid collection will ultimately lead to a lien on the property.”

“As the property owner may bear civil liability for a person suffering personal injury or property damage caused by a defective street: it is in the property owners best interest to maintain the street and reduce the risk of a lawsuit.”

“City ordinance requires property owners to take responsibility for street repairs, regardless of whether or not the tree’s roots causing damage is City owned.”

“An owner shall maintain and repair any defective street fronting such owner’s lot, lots or portion of a lot. Where a defective street is caused in whole or in part by a tree root or roots, the owner shall nevertheless have the duty to repair the street.“

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? And it is absurd. Sidewalks are an integral part of the transportation system in the city. In fact, for people with disabilities who use mobility devices, they are the ONLY way of travel in the city. So trying to force responsibility for sidewalks onto property owners is a violation of at least the intent of ADA regulations, and perhaps the actual legal force of ADA regulations.

Beyond the arguments of fairness in sidewalk policies, there is the real issue that it simply does not work. There are broken sidewalks all over the central city, and the further out one goes, the worse they are. There are sidewalk defects that have been there the entire 12 years I’ve lived in the central city. There is a clear pattern that sidewalks in front of residential property are much more likely to get repaired than in front of commercial properties, reflecting a bias in enforcment.

Some lower income neighborhoods have such poor sidewalks (not to mention narrow sidewalks of 3-4 feet) that everyone walks in the street instead. If the city’s bias against walkers and the disabled is clear, its bias against lower income neighborhoods is glaring.

Even if the city’s policy on sidewalk repair were morally right, which it clearly is not, it is a failure to serve citizens of the city. And it is as clear a statement of bias in favor the drivers of motor vehicles as one can find. It is time for it to end.

Sacramento and sidewalks

Dan Allison2 Comments

The draft City of Sacramento Climate Action Plan (CAAP) section MEASURE TR-1: Improve Active Transportation Infrastructure to Achieve 6% Active Transportation Mode Share by 2030 and 12% by 2045, includes the performance indicator “Deploy 20,000 feet of new/repaired pedestrian infrastructure by 2030”. The final CAAP will become part of the city’s 2040 General Plan.

This is less than four miles of sidewalk repair. The city has approximately 2300 miles of sidewalk. At this rate, 8 years to repair 4 miles of sidewalk, it would take 4600 years to address the sidewalks in the city. What does the city intend instead? That private property owners repair sidewalks, even though the sidewalks and the land they sit on belong to the city (in most cases, though some wider sidewalks in the central city are a mix of city and private). From the city’s Sidewalks, Curbs & Gutters page:

Q: Isn’t it the City’s responsibility to maintain the sidewalk? Isn’t it public property?

A: The sidewalk is in the City’s right-of-way. However, California Streets and Highways Code sections 5610 through 5618 allow cities throughout California to require property owners to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property. Sacramento City Code section 12.32 sets forth the City’s procedures under these sections.  Sacramento is not the only city to require sidewalk repairs to be the property owner’s responsibility. However, curb and gutter maintenance is the City’s responsibility. As the property owner may bear civil liability for a person suffering personal injury or property damage caused by a defective sidewalk: it is in the property owners best interest to maintain the sidewalk and reduce the risk of a lawsuit.

Note the word ‘allows’. Nothing requires that the city shift the burden of sidewalk maintenance to private property owners. The city has simply decided to do so, so that it may shift responsibility of a critical part of the transportation infrastructure off the city and onto adjacent property owners (so that it may spend more on roadway capacity expansion, in case you were wondering). Though it would make sense to require property owners to repair sidewalk damage from root heaving due to trees on private property, it is ridiculous (and criminal, in my opinion) for the city to demand that private property owners repair sidewalks when the trees are in the city-owned sidewalk buffer area. This is the sort of action one would expect in a dictatorship, forcing citizens to take on individual responsibility for city actions.

See previous posts: Walkable Sacramento #4: sidewalks and whose responsibility are sidewalks?.