Bee Investigator: Money, staffing trip up sidewalk repair in Modesto

Growing up in Davis, I remember walking on a patch of sidewalk downtown that was made of sparkly concrete.

It was dazzling and I wondered why every sidewalk wasn’t so beautiful. Of course, when you’re 8, you have no concept of money, and for all I know, the business owners set back from that sidewalk paid for it.

A city has limited funds and more pressing concerns than aesthetics when it comes to sidewalks, like function and safety – including reducing chances people will trip.

Several people have posed sidewalk-related questions concerning those issues, as well as aesthetics.

“How come the city keeps spray-painting the broken sidewalks instead of fixing them?” asked Danielle Parent. “If my kid falls and gets hurt one more time, Mama Bear will come a-knocking.”

Parent didn’t indicate where in Modesto she’s seen this ground graffiti, but Modesto Streets Manager Jack Hunt confirmed it exists; however, it’s generally not done by city workers.

He said occasionally his crews will mark a location that is slated for repair, but they use only white paint. He’s noticed that residents have taken it upon themselves to spray-paint trip hazards.

“I have seen everything from bright orange to bright pink,” he said. “They will paint a stripe right across the offset where it is lifted.”

Good intentions, but I’d suggest accompanying the effort with a phone call to the city’s streets division at (209) 342-2244. Hunt said the city gets as many as a dozen calls a day during the summer, when people are most often out and about.

The problem sidewalk, once reported, will be added to a repair list, and thanks to a new program implemented this year, it could be addressed in a matter of days.

But herein lies the aesthetic issue.

City staff reported to the City Council in April that it had a seven-year backlog of repairs needed for Modesto’s 1,438 miles of sidewalk.

Short-staffed and operating with an annual sidewalk budget of $1.2 million, staff was falling farther behind each day. Another issue, Hunt said, is that the city workers who cut the tree roots before they started coming up through the sidewalks were laid off several years ago and have not been replaced.

So instead of tearing out the entire section of broken sidewalk and replacing it with new concrete, crews this year started patching cracks and uneven pavement with asphalt, Hunt said.

If there is less than a 2-inch offset in the crack, crews will simply grind it down until it’s flush.

The city still removes and replaces cracked sidewalks downtown; only in residential neighborhoods will you see the black patches.

It’s not pretty, but it’s cost-effective and allows crews to make these fixes within days instead of months or possibly even years, Hunt said.

A property owner may opt for concrete instead of asphalt, but he has to pay for it. While the council voted to waive the permit fee for construction, the property owner must foot the bill for labor and materials.

Hunt said 1 square foot of concrete costs $6, while “asphalt ramping” costs $3 and grinding costs $1.70.

Again, the city’s ultimate goal is to make the sidewalks safe and minimize liability by mitigating trip hazards and meeting American with Disabilities Act requirements.

That brings me to a sidewalk issue in Empire.

Kay Robles bought a home on Tyson Street in 2010. She visited the post office to arrange mail delivery and was told she would have to conform to the service norm on her street – mailboxes secured in buckets of cement on the sidewalk. This system, she said, obstructs the sidewalk and forces people in wheelchairs and those pushing strollers to circumvent them by way of the street.

Robles said she refused to contribute to the problem and now pays for a post office box.

I searched the Stanislaus County Code addressing obstructions on sidewalks and, from what I can tell, it is a violation only to loiter on them; let your plants, trees or shrubs encroach on them; or for an “Internet vendor” to solicit or do business on them.

Robles spoke with post office staff about the issue when she first moved to Empire four years ago.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman James Wigdel suggests Robles go back and speak with her local postmaster.

“They are the best resources in a community,” he said. “They work with the community all the time, and if something needs to be adjusted, they would know.”

One option, Wigdel said, would be to rally her neighbors to pursue switching to the centralized delivery boxes that the Postal Service installs in all new developments.

Robles doubts she could get many of her neighbors to sign on and believes this never should have been an issue in the first place. “Really, I’m just angry that they have so little regard for the disabled … (and) at the expense of people who shouldn’t have to go into the street to walk (with) their children,” she said.

This story was originally published November 23, 2014 at 9:08 AM with the headline "Bee Investigator: Money, staffing trip up sidewalk repair in Modesto."