Park Road Sidewalk SlugFest
Park Road's sidewalk situation isn't quite as dire.
As sidewalks go, the city’s retrofit of one that borders a small stretch of Park Road is causing more anguish than the step-on-a-crack, break-your-mother’s-back jingle.
First there’s the price, which tops out at a whopping $665,000 for about two blocks of sidewalk along Park Road, between Sunset and Poindexter drives.
“The City of Charlotte is facing less revenue in 2010, but wants to spend $665,000 on a two-block sidewalk?” Chuck Allen, a resident of Park Road, asked incredulously during a Citizens’ Forum of a recent city council meeting.
Why is the city spending such an exorbitant amount, Allen asked, on such a small stretch of sidewalk that neighbors oppose? Why isn’t the city spending the money, he asked, on essentials like more police?
He wasn’t alone with his questions, or his criticism of the project. Park Road neighbors filled a few rows of the council’s meeting chamber, protesting the planned sidewalk. Neighbors argue that not only is the project too expensive and unwarranted, but also that it will destroy one of the city’s most precious assets, leveling about a dozen trees, and adversely impact the yards of households on Park Road.
“There hasn’t been a sidewalk there in 30 years,” Allen said. “Why do we need one now?”
Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT) officials contend it’s needed to align lingering sections of Park Road with the city’s sidewalk retrofit policy, which calls for identified thoroughfares to be bordered on both sides by sidewalks; that policy wasn’t in place when Park Road was widened, hence the retrofit moniker.
The two-block portion of missing sidewalk that’s drawing the ire of neighbors is one of the more significant gaps along Park Road that is a risk area for pedestrian mobility, according to CDOT Director Danny Pleasant.
He acknowledged that the project’s price tag is higher than usual for sidewalks, attributing the extra cost to obstacles with grading and slope issues, as well as having to erect a retaining wall. Tree-save was also a concern that his department examined when planning the project, he said, lowering some standards for sidewalk width to allow for more preservation. The city would also replace any trees that were torn down with new ones, although they would take years to mature.
“We’re trying to thread it through there with the least impact possible,” Pleasant said, “but we understand that you’re still going to have objections.”
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