Some advocates for pedestrian access claim that the source
of funding for sidewalks strongly affects a city’s walkability. Groups such as
Atlanta’s PEDS
argue that if cities fully fund sidewalk construction without any cost placed
on adjacent property owners, walkability will be higher.
Measuring walkability is fraught with controversy. Walk Score is a popular tool that
measures how pedestrian-friendly a city and its neighborhoods are. However, it
is dependent on the proximity of residences to businesses. Their focus appears
to be that it is more important to have somewhere to walk to than to have a clear
path to get there. Such an assumption is a great way to start a bar fight among urbanists.
Let’s compare how the walk score for a few select cities
varies under the following two circumstances:
1. 1. The city spreads the cost of building sidewalks among
all taxpayers, as with streets and highways via taxation.
2. 2. The city puts the onus of paying for sidewalk
construction on the adjacent property owners.
The possible walk score range is 0-100. Higher scores
reflect better walkability using this metric. Note that I am focusing on city
policies for new construction to fill in sidewalk gaps.
 |
| Georgetown, a section of Washington, DC, features a dense grid, small blocks, and extensive sidewalks. |
Washington, DC,
updated its sidewalk
installation policy in 2015 to ensure that gaps in sidewalk coverage were
filled even when no new construction projects, such as road improvements or development
projects, were planned. New sidewalk construction in gaps is prioritized as
follows:
1.
School areas
2.
Routes that provide access to parks and
recreational facilities
3.
Transit stops
4.
Locations where the absence of a sidewalk
creates substantial pedestrian safety risks
5.
Roadway segments for which residents have
petitioned to have sidewalks
The process is primarily staff-driven until the last
criterion. It requires property owner input, but not their contribution of
funds. Washington’s walk
score is an impressive 77.
Fairfax City, VA,
a city in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., reserves the
authority in its Residential
New Concrete Sidewalk Policy to build new sidewalks via its tax-funded
Capital Improvement Program. Neither payment nor permission from adjacent
homeowners is required, though notice to them and nearby civic associations is.
The city has a lackluster walk
score of 52.
 |
| Sure, Fairfax City will pay for sidewalks, but is this highway-choked sprawl really walkable? |
Los Angeles, CA is
often thought of as the stereotypical, car-centric American city, yet its walk score of 66 indicates
that perception may no longer be accurate. Thanks to the settlement of a lawsuit
over the city’s failure to make miles of broken and missing sidewalks comply
with the Americans
with Disabilities Act, L.A. must
commit $1.3 billion to pedestrian projects over the next few decades. That enormous
commitment led the city to embrace a “fix-and-release”
policy for sidewalks.
Under this scheme, L.A. will pay to build new sidewalks, as
well as reconstruct damaged ones, next to commercial, industrial and
residential properties. It will then offer a limited warranty period that
guarantees only one repair in the future. The duration of the warranty is
twenty years for sidewalks next to residences and five years for those next to
commercial properties.
 |
| Nobody walks in LA, especially if they close off the entire street. |
On the day the plan passed, L.A. Councilman Paul Krekorian
claimed, “This fear that seems to be out there that suddenly people are going
to have a burden dumped upon them – that just isn’t the case.” But, that’s
exactly what will happen once the warranty’s clock runs out. For those of
limited financial means, fixing a city sidewalk could be a heavy burden.
Atlanta, GA mirrors
Los Angeles by shunting the cost of sidewalks squarely
on the shoulders of adjacent property owners, though without L.A.’s limited
warranty. Sidewalk
gaps in Atlanta are common and building new sidewalks can be costly, thanks
to Atlanta’s use of hexagonal blocks instead of poured concrete. Atlanta’s walk score is a poor 48.
 |
| Few would argue that Atlanta is a pedestrian-friendly city today, but that may be about to change thanks to T-SPLOST. |
In response to this poor environment for walking, the city
leadership backed a referendum on a special local option sales tax for
transportation, commonly known as T-SPLOST. Now that it has passed, $300 million in
revenue will be generated over a five year period. Sidewalk projects will
receive over $69
million of that amount.
Alexandria, VA,
has a sidewalk
policy that spreads the cost of sidewalks among all taxpayers, while
effectively allowing adjacent property owners to veto a new sidewalk.
Applications to the Residential Sidewalk Program require the signatures of five
residents within that project area in support of the sidewalk. Those commuting
through the area to reach a transit hub like King Street Metro station won’t be
counted. Additionally, Alexandria “requires the identification of a project
champion, who will be the main point of contact for the City.” That champion
must then:
…notify each household
in project area with flyer distribution and provide signatures noting support
for or against the project from 80% of addresses in project area. Property
owners directly adjacent to proposed sidewalk MUST sign the petition and note
if they support or do not support the project.
There is no exception if an adjacent property owner refuses
to sign and indicate support of opposition. Conceivably, that conveys a veto
power to those who don’t cooperate with the process.
 |
| This is close to a schoolbus stop and along a busy pedestrian route to a Metrorail/Commuter rail/Bus transit hub. Pedestrians are forced into the street because the city gives homeowners a veto on sidewalks. |
Alexandria maintains Silver level status as a Walk
Friendly Community, a designation made by a coalition that includes the
Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, the League of American
Bicyclists, and multiple federal agencies. However, that status appears to
derive from a combination of staffing and a city Complete
Streets policy, rather than sidewalk conditions. The city’s overall walk score is a mediocre 61.
New York City, NY,
puts all responsibility for construction
of missing sidewalks onto adjacent property owners. That includes both
installation and subsequent maintenance. If a property owner refuses to comply,
the city will do the work, send them an invoice, and place a lien on the
property, if necessary. As with Los
Angeles, this approach could be a burden on property owners in low-income
areas.
 |
| Is a city walkable if the sidewalks are so crowded that pedestrians walk in the street? That's happening in NYC, but Walk Score rates them highly. |
New York faces a serious pedestrian congestion issue in the
city. Sidewalks in extreme high-density areas such as Manhattan simply aren’t
wide enough to handle the traffic. The
New York Times refers to this situation as “Sidewalk
Gridlock.” However, despite this apparent infrastructural shortcoming, the
city still has a high walk score
of 89.
The funding source of new sidewalk construction does not appear
to track with walkability as measured by Walk Score. That would indicate that
either Walk Score’s methodology is utterly useless or that the importance of
sidewalk conditions is overrated. Until a metric is developed that directly
accounts for sidewalk conditions across multiple jurisdictions, this is a
debate that will be impossible to settle, as measurement of walkability will
remain largely subjective.
