Tim, I know which sidewalk you are talking about as I live around the corner. It looks like the contractor did all the easy parts first and can’t figure out how to do the hard parts(corner) as it hasn’t even been formed up. Plus your garage is unusable with the pile of roadmix in front of it. These contractors should have performance guarantees that come out of the homeowners portion when they fail to complete in a timely manner.

My sidewalk was replaced when the contractor next door thought it would be a great place to park a cement truck. With his and ACHD’s contribution, I ended up with a sweet deal.

Holy cow, Tim, I’d be tickled pink to even have sidewalks in my neighborhood. Neighborhoods on the Bench were built to cheap and primitive standards. The taxpayers of Boise paid for your sidewalks 100 years ago and now they have worn out and need replaced. Be happy you have a sidewalk to repair and it’s lasted so long, but unfortunately you had to be the one holding the bag when it wore out.

Around the 20s or 30s, the city decided it wouldn’t pay for such a nicely detailed public realm with sidewalks and a strip of grass and trees between the sidewalk and curb. Developers didn’t feel this was right and the city buckled and let them off the hook for having to build sidewalks at all. Also, without sidewalks and grass strips, developers could condense a few more home lots into the neighborhood. The result: density without the benefits of density (better infrastructure). With people using cars to get around, developers could very long blocks (a half-mile long in some cases), making it impossible to get around on foot but allowing a few more lots to be squeezed in.

Since the ’70s, the city has required developers to put in sidewalks as a matter of public safety. They’re view liked running water, sanitary sewer, electricity, paved roads and other essentials of a First World development. But there are huge areas of the city built to very cheap, shortsighted and stupid standards. People keep their kids under virtual houe arrest because it’s just not safe to let them wander freely without sidewalks and parents and teenagers zooming through the neighborhood.

Sorry to hear about the inept contractor. But just be happy to have a sidewalk to repair.

Sharon, if the ACHD paid for sidewalk repair, it would have less money to install sidewalks in neighborhoods that never had them. In a more perfect world, the ACHD would take care of the sidewalks AND the roads, but it’s also trying to retrofit sidewalks in older neighborhoods.

Realy, the ACHD’s whole approach to sidewalks is wrong – sidewalks are at the bottom of the totem pole. To get them installed, you need like 90 percent of the homeowners agree to donate their property for a sidewalk. If a few object, they can hold it up for everyone. The ACHD says that’s to make sure they’re not forcing sidewalks on anyone and only the neighborhoods that really need and want them, get them.

Oddly, when the ACHD wants to widen the road in front of your house, they don’t go door-to-door with a petition saying, “We’d really like you to donate your front yard for a new lane of traffic. Will you kindly sign this petition because we don’t want to force this road expansion on anybody?” HA! They say “We’re widening this road because our public process has concluded the extra capacity is a public necessity. And we’re going to forcibly buy the land from you and so can’t hold it up.”

If only the ACHD gave sidewalks that kind of respect, funding and authority.

I’ve never figured out how the city or ACHD or anybody else can require homeowners to repair sidewalks. You don’t own them (If you did, you could tear them out and plant flowers or something — just try it! Whew!)

Worse than the repairs: If someone slips on an icy sidewalk in the winter and gets injured, that someone can sue YOU, the homeowner, even though, nope, it’s still not YOUR sidewalk.
And if the snow piles up on it, you are required by law (so they say, anyway) to shovel it off.
Something’s really rotten in any system that can require a citizen to care for, clean and repair something he or she does not own and has no control over (You might try putting up “No trespassing” signs on it, or deciding which people you would allow to use it, just as you can decide which people to allow into your house or to have a picnic in you yard. Heh! I’ll bet the powers that be would raise all kinds of hell with you. You have no rights — just financial responsibilities.)

Can someone please explain how that works, how it can be constitutional, and wherein lies any for of logic?

Sara, the ACHD does indeed have a process. You probably know it better than I do. They do studies, put something in a work plan, hold hearings, vote, put it to bid, etc.

The hearings are often instructive. The Curtis Road extension/widening was a good example of “PITBYS,” a variation of NIMBY that stands for “Put It in Their Back Yard.” These are neighbors who will testify in favor of widening the street in front of someone else’s home so they can get to work or shopping a little faster. You know darn well they’d go berserk if someone proposed widening the street in front of the PITBY’s home, however.

Institutions like the ACHD reflect the common values of the majority. As long as people place cars above children, pedestrians and bicyclists, cars will always come first in process and funding.

Anne, it blows me away you “lived in fear” of sidewalks.

You said you’d prefer a walking and bike path as part of the street (presumably to be shared space with autos). I can’t imagine that a neighborhood too primitive for sidewalks would have a marked pathway in the street. As for trees, sidewalks can often be routed around them. I’d rather see kids be able to walk to school, even if it means a few less trees. Trees are cut and chopped all the time for roads and power lined but suddenly they are objects of worship when sidewalks are proposed.

What frightened you so much about sidewalks? I recall taking a petition door-to-door in my neighborhood for sidewalks. I was astounded at the people who didn’t want them. I could never get them to articulate an actual reason. Some just had a vague dislike about the idea of people walking in front of their home, others were afraid their property values would go up, other said they didn’t care if kids had to walk in the street.

Wonk, surely you jest regarding ACHD holding hearings. Tell me when they’ve actually held a hearing. I don’t mean one of their open houses where everything has been decided and they are shoving the product down the public’s throat. I mean a real hearing where the public is allowed input BEFORE the project is decided and that input is taken into account in the final design.

Here’s the answer. Not in a very very long time if ever.

Why do you think ACHD got terrible ratings from the ULI on public participation? (notwithstanding their spokesmouth’s propaganda which turns day to night and up to down.