Legislation directing the District’s Transportation Department to install sidewalks where none exist has stalled in a D.C. Council committee, to the chagrin of many residents whose daily commute requires a walk in the street.
About 200 miles of District roadway are without sidewalks. The legislation, authored by Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, would require the D.C. Department of Transportation to install of a sidewalk on at least one side of the street whenever it does a resurfacing, reconstruction, or curb and gutter replacement.
It’s a matter of public safety, proponents say, and of creating environmentally friendly, walkable communities.
“Anytime we do any road work, there should be at least a sidewalk on one of the street,” Cheh said Wednesday. “That’s the bottom line.”
The bill, first introduced in 2007 and again in early 2009, is idling in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Chairman Jim Graham tabled the legislation Tuesday, the day it was scheduled for a vote.
DDOT’s steps to improve sidewalks
» Finalized Pedestrian Master Plan in April 2009
» $4 million in stimulus dedicated to sidewalk construction
» $5 million dedicated to improving sidewalks near schools
The matter of sidewalks has stirred neighborhood rancor. Residents who have invested time and money in the public space fronting their homes are lobbying — sometimes behind each other’s backs — to have sidewalks installed on the other side of the street, said Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser. These are issues of “harmony,” she said, that are not addressed in the bill. “I think it’s not sidewalks as much as it is people are concerned, rightly so, about their largest investment, and that is their home,” Bowser told The Examiner. “They want to be sure the government isn’t running roughshod over their investment.”
Bowser, a member of the public works committee, has not decided whether to support Cheh’s bill. But she is having language added to require community notification when a sidewalk is going in, as well as neighborhood input during the design phase.
During the public hearing, Hawthorne resident Lee Mayer criticized the legislation because it would establish a “blanket policy that ignores existing conditions and homeowner opinion.” Residents of the far Northwest community “bought their houses knowing there were no sidewalks,” Mayer said.
Sidewalk opponents often, wrongly, think of the public space in front of their homes as part of their front yards, said Trudy Reeves, a McLean Gardens advisory neighborhood commissioner. Reeves urged the council to pass the bill now.
“We live in the city and we should have walkable sidewalks,” Reeves said.
