Disrepair of Lawrence’s sidewalks concerns pedestrian-bicycle task force

Lawrence’s protocol for sidewalk maintenance is leaving many repairs undone, and the sidewalks’ flaws — including cracks, raised or depressed sections and brick sidewalks with gaps — may cost up to $6 million to fix, city engineer Dave Cronin told members of the Pedestrian-Bicycle Issues Task Force at the group’s meeting Monday evening.

According to city code, when a sidewalk adjacent to residential or commercial properties is damaged, the responsibility of repairs falls on the property owner, Cronin said. The challenge comes in enforcing those repairs, he said.

“A lot of the challenge is that you’re expecting property owners to maintain their sidewalks, and for a lot of the folks it comes down to whether they can fit that in their budget,” Cronin said, noting that for the average city lot it costs about $1,500 to repair a damaged sidewalk.

“If they have low income and they have to make decisions about putting food on their table or replacing their sidewalks, it’s hard to argue with them about what their priorities should be,” he said.

The Lawrence City Commission created the Pedestrian-Bicycle Issues Task Force in March in order to look at policies, laws, funding and best practices for bicycle and pedestrian issues. The task force, which is made up of 11 Lawrence residents, was meeting for its fifth time, and will make recommendations to the City Commission by the end of the year.

City Auditor Michael Eglinski told task force members that of the nearly 1,300 respondents in the July 2015 Lawrence citizen survey, which asked residents about a variety of city services, 33 percent said they were not satisfied with the condition of sidewalks in their neighborhoods.

“People are unsatisfied with it compared to other parks and rec services, and they think it’s important,” Eglinski said.

The city’s current approach is to send letters to property owners if a complaint is received about their sidewalk, which results in the owners making repairs in about half of the cases, according to data presented by Cronin. The city maintains sidewalks in parks and those adjacent to city-owned property.

Eglinski presented more active approaches that other cities have taken for sidewalk maintenance. Three approaches discussed were a voter-approved property tax to pay for sidewalk repairs; city-funded inspections with repairs by owners or through a city-managed contract billed to the owner; and a monthly utility charge to fund systematic inspections and city contractor repairs.

Marilyn Hull, the task force chair, said that determining which inspection and funding approach would work best for Lawrence will be one of the task force’s objectives.

“A big part of our conversation going forward is going to be, if this (approach) isn’t working, what can we do instead,” Hull said.

Residents can leave a comment for the task force about what they would like to see the city of Lawrence do to encourage and support safe and accessible walking and bicycling on the city’s online forum, Lawrence Listens. The task force’s next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Sept. 16 at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.