#broken sidewalks

Brooklyn Sidewalk Repairs & Violation Removal More than just an eyesore, cracked, crumbling, and broken sidewalks can be dangerous. If sidewalk damage is present on your Brooklyn property, you may soon be held responsible for safety issues and, if unchecked, may incur significant fines from the DOT.

It is the obligation of the property owners in Brooklyn to maintain their sidewalks and stay on top of their sidewalk repair needs to make sure that it is safe for everyone who uses their walk to make a statement and you don't have to deal with pricey DOT sidewalk citations.

Those funds, part of $1,090,000 slated for sidewalks, will pay for the Frankfort Avenue Sidewalk Extension Project, an upcoming study that will look at a .8-mile stretch of Frankfort Avenue between Pope Street and River Road. That study could get underway this fall.

The study will look at Frankfort Avenue from River Road to Pope Street. (Via Google)

“I’m particularly interested in the sidewalk connection because we have a pretty much totally missing sidewalk from Story Avenue until River Road,” Metro Councilman Bill Hollander (D-9) told Broken Sidewalk. “You see people all the time going from Butchertown, Clifton going down to the waterfront walking in the street. It’s really a high priority for me.”

While the $50,000, which became available July 1, won’t pay for any sidewalks outright—it’s only for a planning study—it does pave the way for a completely new streetscape from Pope Street to River Road in the future. “We’re probably a few months away from getting this started,” Hollander said.

“We plan to start on Frankfort Avenue in the fall,” Gretchen Milliken, director of advanced planning at Develop Louisville, said. The study will be conducted out of her department, but there are several steps that need to be completed first.

This fall, Develop Louisville will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a consultant to conduct the study, which generally takes around two weeks. Then the city will review the responses and issue a contract, which takes another couple weeks.

“This isn’t a really long one—six months max,” Milliken said. “We do want to get the community engagement piece right.” Once the study is complete, then funding for the actual sidewalks and streetscapes will be sought. That amount could run into the millions of dollars depending on the recommendations of the study.

“We’ve got a couple major projects going on now,” Milliken said, including redoing Ninth Street and Broadway Downtown. She added that her office is currently short staffed after a planner recently left for a new job in Texas. “Frankfort Avenue is not on the top of our priority list.”

Frankfort Avenue looking toward the river from Pope Street. (Google)

The project bounds begin at Frankfort Avenue and Pope Street at the top of the hill where Frankfort rises up from Beargrass Creek. “There’s a section between Story and Pope Street,” Hollander said, “where much of it is not very visually appealing.” For instance, around Frankfort and Mellwood, there’s a used car lot, an abandoned gas station, a parking lot, and the blank wall of a metal warehouse.

The state has not properly maintained a bridge crossing Beargrass Creek. (Google)

“It crosses Beargrass Creek,” Hollander continued. He said an old bridge over the creek with iron railings is in need of repair. “The state’s reaction to that was to put up these huge chain link sections over the black fencing. Now the weeds have grown up and you can’t see the creek.”

The floodwall is an engineering challenge along the route. (Google)

Then the situation gets really bad. “You’ve got to get around the flood wall,” Hollander said. “It needs some thought and engineering.” Milliken agreed: “The flood wall is going to be an issue,” she said. “It’s really tight there.” She said the study will consider, among other things, the feasibility of cutting a pedestrian doorway into the flood wall.

Past the floodwall, there are no sidewalks at all. “You have the entrance to the impoundment lot, the concrete plant,” Hollander said. “Right now, the study area is a complete mess.”

The Ohio Street landfill on the left will be transformed into the Waterfront Botanical Garden. (Google)

Toward the waterfront at the base of the old Heigold House facade, Botanica is planning an ambitious new Waterfront Botanical Gardens. “We’re not doing this because of Botanica,” Milliken said, “but that’s going to be a big piece of it.” She add that the city could try to coordinate with Public Works on repaving the corridor as part of the project.

For many Frankfort Avenue effectively ends at Story Avenue, but there’s a lot of potential to create a real gateway to Waterfront Park and the Ohio River. “It’s about connectivity to the riverfront, it’s about pedestrian safety and how that corridor gets used,” Milliken said. Changes here can’t come soon enough.

There are many pieces of broken and uneven sidewalk in this town that I consciously choose to not make a big deal out of most of the time (and yes, I know I probably should) for several reasons: I try to give people and businesses the benefit of the doubt, I’m probably the least confrontational person you’ll ever meet (but I’m working on it) and I’ve just learned to work around these issues.

However, this patch of gravel on sixth has made my traversing past difficult the last week or so and tonight I got stuck in the gravel and it took me, a friend and a random kind passerby a broken, unopened bottle of cider and a total of three times to get me unstuck. If I was by myself I probably would have fallen or had a broken wheel(s). You don’t need to be disabled for this gravel patch to hurt you. This isn’t safe and very, very frustrating.

You came to me Like marigolds that Grew in cracks Of broken side walks Every day The sun had shone Through your eyes And every day It grew brighter Bits of blue And slits of grey Silver linings Of my life Playing through The thought of you Kissing me Brought me home And never dreamt In a million years Did a broken girl A girl like me A sad little thing Of crushed dandelions And rainy days Have a home With marigolds.

Louisville law says that you have to shovel the sidewalk in front a house you own or rent. Or you have to shovel in front of your business, whether you own the building it’s in or not, or whether the building is set back 400 feet from Broadway or if it comes right up to the sidewalk on Bardstown Road. And you have to clear the sidewalk in a timely manner—in Louisville that means within 24 hours. Here’s Louisville’s ordinance governing sidewalk shoveling:

§ 97.113 SNOW REMOVAL (A) It shall be the duty of all persons and corporations owning or occupying property abutting a public street in Louisville Metro to remove within 24 hours thereafter such snow as may fall on the sidewalks in front of their property. Where the property is unimproved or unoccupied this duty shall devolve on the owner or the agent for the property. Where property is occupied by others than owners thereof, this duty shall devolve on the owner or the tenants and either may be proceeded against for the violation.

If you don’t shovel your sidewalk, you’ll get slapped with a fine ranging from $25 to $100—or more likely you won’t. Louisville doesn’t actively enforce sidewalk shoveling, rather opting to inspect sidewalks and potentially issue fines only when a complaint has been filed. But it appears that even when a complaint has been filed, Metro Louisville has only issued letters of warning, according to a Courier-Journal report on a recent Metro Council hearing.

Take a look at these snow-covered sidewalks around Louisville, the story continues below:

According to the newspaper, Vanessa Burns, director of public works, told the council, “We need to figure out a way to get people to be more responsible.” We’d suggest enforcing the existing ordinance and issuing fines to people who do not follow the law—lots of them. Compare, for instance, what would happen if we issued parking tickets in the same way: There would be rampant parking abuse. It’s partly due to the threat of a parking ticket and its associated fines that keep street parking in check.

And it’s not okay that Louisville pedestrians are treated as second class citizens during winter weather. With all the effort expended to clear streets and highways across town—no small undertaking—people who don’t rely on cars to get around need equal protection—and right now the system is failing.

Ordinances like Louisville’s are common in other cities. According to Bloomberg Business:

Most cities have the authority to levy fines for not shoveling your sidewalk after a snowstorm. In New York, the fines can be $100 or more. Boston charges at least $50 for each day a sidewalk remains covered by snow. Fines in Philadelphia run from $50 to $300, while Washington just enacted a law(PDF) fining residences $25 and businesses $150 for an unshoveled walk.

That’s me clearing the sidewalk in front of a townhouse where I once lived in Brooklyn.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion about who is actually responsible for clearing sidewalks. For instance, Rebecca Matheny, executive director at the Louisville Downtown Partnership, sent out a letter this morning to downtown businesses reminding them to keep their sidewalks clear:

As in the past, the Louisville Downtown Partnership will have our personnel clearing the crosswalk areas of intersections within the Downtown Management District. The Public Works Department of Metro Government will be responsible for keeping streets clear and passable by plowing excess snow into the parking lanes. Per Metro ordinance, private property owners will be responsible to keep the sidewalks in front of their businesses clear and safe.

Beyond the sidewalks, it’s important to note that if there’s a TARC stop in front of your building, it’s your responsibility to keep that clear as well. Jon Reiter, communications manager at TARC, told Broken Sidewalk in an email, “the responsibility of shoveling and ice removal around [TARC] stops falls to the property owner, similarly to how it operates with sidewalks.” At the Metro Council hearing, Councilman Tom Owen noted the danger of snow and ice piled up at TARC stops—he rides the bus himself. He suggested the council take up the issue in the next budget.

But the need to create a safer experience for pedestrians and transit users is imminent with up to a foot of snow expected to fall in the Louisville area. Mayor Greg Fischer today issued a plea to citizens to do their part, urging people to clear a wide swath of sidewalk so citizens using wheelchairs and walkers can pass. “We also need citizens to help us remove snow from around the nearly 5,000 TARC bus stops,” Fischer said in a statement. “During the last snow, many TARC stops became a hazard because they were icy and frozen.” He added that various Metro agencies, TARC, and inmates from Metro Corrections have formed the “TARC Dig Out Team” to target high-traffic bus stops.

With this snow, we’re calling on Metro Louisville to actively enforce the sidewalk snow removal ordinance in key locations across the city, including Downtown Louisville and top commercial corridors like Bardstown Road or Frankfort Avenue. This is first a matter of basic safety, second a matter of business as it’s important to keep the local economy up and running even in the wake of heavy snowfall, and third a matter of common decency.

The only way to get everyone to shovel his or her sidewalk is to enforce the ordinance that was created for this very purpose. A $25 to $100 fine is the tough-love teaching tool that has become necessary to ensure that sidewalks are actually cleared. And perhaps those fines can be saved to an account that funds the TARC Dig Out Team in future years—or even develop a higher-minded strategy for keeping sidewalks clear.

[Note: Images of snow-covered Louisville sidewalks courtesy Debra Richards Harlan.]