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With a dedicated pot of money, sidewalk construction in Olympia is not a question of whether, but where and when. Olympia City Council members discussed the future of the sidewalk program this month, including whether the city should focus more on adding sidewalks to neighborhood streets rather than major arterials.
“I do hear that the council is interested in tweaking the criteria,” Mayor Doug Mah said.
Before passage of the tax measure, which also supports parks, the city outlined 33 sidewalk projects for the next 20 years. Many of those projects have been completed.
Work is under way on sidewalks on Boulevard Road from 22nd Avenue to 31st Court. Since 2005, the city has completed a sidewalk on San Francisco Avenue from Garrison Street to East Bay Drive, improving safety on a steep hill and requiring a retaining wall.
There’s a new sidewalk on Division Street from Bowman Road to Walnut Road. Other sidewalks were built on Bush Street, Quince Street, Miller Avenue, Bigelow Avenue and Brawne Avenue. And the sidewalks are now on Decatur Street from about Ninth Avenue to 13th Avenue.
“They are really removing barriers for people to be able to walk places now,” said Sophie Stimson, senior planner for the city.
Before the measure passed, the city developed a long-term sidewalk plan with specific criteria to prioritize what sidewalk gets built when. It’s a big change from the 1990s, when the city used to build them based on short-term lists.
The city identified 84 miles of missing sidewalks on major streets – 156 miles of total possible sidewalks on both sides of streets – and devised a plan to shrink that number. To stretch its dollars, the city opted to build paths on one side of the street first, rather than both. Leaders decided to build the paths without the usual frontage improvements, such as curbs and street lights.
The city devised a point system, bumping up the sidewalk priority of an area if it’s close to parks, schools, transit and dense land-use areas.
The criteria also look at the size and volumes of streets and whether the proposed sidewalk would fill a missing link.
New sidewalks are built with porous concrete, which allows rainwater to sink in. It reduces the need for costly stormwater controls such as curbs, gutters and stormwater mains. Stimson said the city has had to replace small sections of the sidewalk because the material wasn’t as durable as traditional sidewalk.
“That’s a small price to pay to be able to advance this type of material,” she said. “Overall, I’d say it’s functioned very well, but we certainly have had to do a little bit of replacement.”
City Council members discussed the direction of the sidewalk program at their last meeting, on Aug. 16. Councilman Stephen Buxbaum suggested dedicating some of the sidewalk money to collaborate with neighborhoods on improvements to local-access streets.
Councilman Steve Langer said he was concerned that the plan is to put sidewalks on major arterials, which isn’t necessarily where people walk.
“I’m thinking about this as, Where do pedestrians go?” he said.
He said he’s interested in connecting areas not connected by cars.
Olympia resident Jim Lazar criticized the city’s sidewalk criteria because they’re based on points, not cost. He advocated more of a “bang-for-the-buck” prioritization.
“There are some missing links in our sidewalk system, particularly in northeast Olympia,” he said.
Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869 mbatcheldor@theolympian.com
