Instead of establishing special financing programs or paying for an education campaign, perhaps the city of Lawrence would be better off targeting its efforts – and its money – directly to the problem of repairing crumbling residential sidewalks.

City Manager David Corliss told city commissioners this week that his staff is working on an incentive program to get property owners to repair sidewalks that cross their property. One possible plan would be to allow property owners to repay the cost of the sidewalk as a special assessment added to their property tax bills. Corliss acknowledged that the process “may involve some painful discussions with property owners.”

Perhaps to ward off some of the hard feelings, Corliss also said the city probably would need to create a campaign to let property owners know they are responsible for maintaining sidewalks on their property.

While that is true, according to current city ordinance, property owners are justified in wondering why. Why should individual property owners have to pay to maintain sidewalks that serve their entire neighborhoods and anyone who walks through them any more than they must pay for maintaining the stretch of street in front of their home? A sidewalk doesn’t necessarily add to a property’s value, and the per-foot cost of rebuilding a sidewalk is the same whether it runs in front of a $50,000 home or a $500,000 home.

It seems that public sidewalks should be a public responsibility. In many areas, sidewalks run on one side of the street, but people who live on both sides of the street obviously use them. Why not split the bill? The property owner with the sidewalk already must be responsible for cleaning snow – or, in the last week, chipping ice – off the sidewalks. Why shouldn’t the broader community pay for what clearly is a public service that benefits everyone?

From a practical standpoint, immediately taking over maintenance of about 322 miles of sidewalk in the city would place too great a burden on the city budget. But, as a matter of principle, it seems that the city should move in that direction. Lawrence wants to be a walkable community, but it is unwilling to make sidewalk repair and maintenance a community responsibility.

Perhaps an education campaign and financing arrangements will help alleviate the many sidewalk problems discovered in a survey completed last year, but it is unlikely that will occur without plenty of hard feelings and perhaps some money spent on prosecuting property owners who don’t comply. It’s worth considering that the city might accomplish more by taking all the money it would spend on new programs and legal costs and simply use it to pay some contractors to repair and replace crumbling city sidewalks.