Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

Website

California lawsuits force cities to spend millions to fix sidewalks

Excerpt:

The tactics are already paying off. In the biggest sidewalk-related settlement in California, the California Department of Transportation in 2009 agreed to spend $1.1 billion over 30 years to fix state-controlled sidewalks, crosswalks and park-and-ride facilities.

Sacramento settled a similar case by agreeing to allocate 20% of its annual transportation fund over the next 30 years to make repairs and install ramps.

In Los Angeles, the city has settled two cases for about $85 million. That money will be used over the next two decades to build thousands of sidewalk access ramps at curbs.

But there are four other cases pending that could leave the city on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fixing all of Los Angeles' sidewalks would be a daunting task: Officials estimate the cost of improving them all would top $1.5 billion. But advocates for the disabled hope they can make a measurable dent in the problem.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me … 4523.story

tomwald

Moderator

From: 78722

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 290

Re: California lawsuits force cities to spend millions to fix sidewalks

My understanding is that Austin's ADA lawsuit has the City of Austin on the hook for $5 million minimum annually until the problem is resolved.

Austin's 2010 Bond Prop. 1 allocated about half of the $90MM to bike/ped.  I'm not sure what the pedestrian breakdown is at the moment.

Travis County 2011 Bond Prop. allocated 12% to sidewalks.  The Prop. 2 included trail funding, so the total mobility funding across the two propositions for sidewalks would be more than 12%.