Fayetteville hopes to step up sidewalk construction next year

Workers with the city of Fayetteville smooth freshly poured concrete Wednesday while building sidewalks along Mount Comfort Road west of Garland Avenue. City administrators are proposing an extra $1 million in the city's budget next year to build and repair sidewalks, up from the usual $500,000 or so put in annually. Visit nwaonline.com/211128Daily/ for today's photo gallery.
(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)
Workers with the city of Fayetteville smooth freshly poured concrete Wednesday while building sidewalks along Mount Comfort Road west of Garland Avenue. City administrators are proposing an extra $1 million in the city's budget next year to build and repair sidewalks, up from the usual $500,000 or so put in annually. Visit nwaonline.com/211128Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)

FAYETTEVILLE -- The city hopes an extra $1 million next year will help get some sidewalks off a list that would take two decades to build.

The City Council is in the middle of considering its total $190 million city budget for next year. Included in the budget is $1 million more than usual to build and repair sidewalks. The city usually spends about $500,000 annually. The council is set to talk about the budget Dec. 7.

City crews typically build about 4,000 linear feet of sidewalks each year. The amount of sidewalk contracted crews build varies. The city usually hires contractors when it has more money to spend on sidewalks than it has in-house crews to build them, Public Works Director Chris Brown said. Developers also often build sidewalks with their projects or share the cost with the city.

A voter-approved transportation bond issue from 2019 helped pay for several sidewalks associated with street projects this year. Contractors were hired to take on about 4,000 additional feet of sidewalks.

The city has a list of requests from residents that would take more than 20 years to build, Brown said. Since 2018, the city has used an objective scoring system to prioritize projects. Factors include distance from schools, proximity to goods and services, nearby population density and gaps along sidewalk routes. The higher the score, the higher the project goes on the list.

Brown said he is unsure how many feet of sidewalks the extra $1 million would build. But if $500,000 gets about 4,000 feet, it stands to reason triple the dollar amount would get close to triple the amount of sidewalk, he said. It depends on how much work contractors end up doing, since contractors cost more to hire than city crews.

"The general answer is all of those projects that are in the queue will be able to move up, and we'll be able to do those a little bit quicker," he said.

The city is working on a draft list of projects to bring to the City Council's Transportation Committee. The committee typically reviews a list of sidewalks to take on at the end of the year. Some areas of interest include segments of Happy Hollow Road near Fourth and Fifth streets, Mount Comfort and Salem roads near Holcomb Elementary School and portions of Dickson Street, Brown said.

Fort Smith has a similar approach to sidewalks. The city usually spends about $600,000 per year and completes about 3 miles in new and repaired sidewalks, according to Matt Meeker, director of streets and traffic control. The city is planning to spend an extra $1.5 million next year to repair nearly 6 miles of sidewalks, he said. Contractors will take on the additional work.

Springdale is in the middle of a study to inventory its sidewalks. The city did the same with its streets about two years ago, said Colby Fulfer, chief of staff to Mayor Doug Sprouse.

"We are gathering our complete sidewalk inventory from a study that grades the condition of every sidewalk in Springdale," Fulfer said. "Once we obtain that information, we will build a plan to improve the sidewalks throughout the city. We have multiple funding mechanisms that we can leverage to accomplish this."

Developers build a good portion of the sidewalks in Rogers when constructing new projects, said Peter Masonis, city spokesman. The city has worked with engineering firms on a plan to fill gaps. There are three capital projects in the works that would build 12,500 feet of new sidewalks by next year at a cost of more than $2 million. The projects are for Eighth Street, Hudson Road and near several schools.

Aside from those projects, the city's budget next year proposes raising sidewalk maintenance expenditures from $100,000 to $150,000 next year, mainly to make sidewalks more handicap accessible, Masonis said. The City Council will consider adopting the overall budget next month.

In the past, Bentonville budgeted about $150,000 to repair sidewalks, Transportation Director Dennis Birge said. City administrators recognized a need to better connect sidewalks, especially in areas with lots of pedestrians, such as schools, he said.

The City Council approved a budget for next year to put about $1 million toward sidewalks. Money from the city's engineering and parks funds will help connect sidewalks along streets and to trails, Birge said.

"That's going to be our focus moving into 2022," he said. "We've ramped that up a lot more than what we have in the past."

Sarah Bunch, a Fayetteville City Council member who sits on the council's Transportation Committee, said she gets resident requests about sidewalks at least once a week. The squeaky wheel got the grease before the city came up with its scoring system, she said.

The city's more measured approach may not make everyone happy, she said. Residents may have a sidewalk they've wanted in their neighborhood for years. She encouraged them to still let the city know, but also understand there are criteria to prioritize projects.

"As we have places built, there's a great need for improving sidewalks," Bunch said. "What we've budgeted before is just not going to cut it."

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