posted by Joe Polk at 11:10 AM /
Fifteen homes could have sidewalks added to their property under a Mt. Lebanon proposal that aims to give kids a safer walk to Foster Elementary School.
The plan, submitted by the Mt. Lebanon Public Works Department, calls for 866 feet of sidewalk to be added to four homes from 202 to 214 Whitmore St., and 11 homes on MacArthur Drive, from 845 MacArthur, to the corner property, 128 Woodland Drive. Mt. Lebanon would pay the estimated $40,000 cost.
Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07193/800985-55.stm
The plan, submitted by the Mt. Lebanon Public Works Department, calls for 866 feet of sidewalk to be added to four homes from 202 to 214 Whitmore St., and 11 homes on MacArthur Drive, from 845 MacArthur, to the corner property, 128 Woodland Drive. Mt. Lebanon would pay the estimated $40,000 cost.
Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07193/800985-55.stm
Labels: municipality, sidewalks
12 Comments:
Heh.
Way back, 15 years ago or so, the Swansons put in their own stretch of sidewalk in front of 135 Woodland, and paid for it themselves. I know this because my parents live next door. They were tired enough of the district continually ignoring the neighborhood parents' requests for sidewalks that they did something about it.
Anyhow, a few years after that, Lebo went ahead and decided to put in a sidewalk after all - on the other side of the street, from Vermont to the corner at MacArthur.
You can still see the standalone stretch of walk, even though the Swansons (and the Bleijendaals after them) are long gone.
And now you know the rest of the story :)
Commish Logan lives on Valleyview in Va. Manor. As most people know the Valleyview-Osage loop is perhaps the most walked, jogged, cycled loop in Mt. Lebanon. People drive over to exercise in this neighborhood. I would be curious to know if Commish Logan would support (and pay for sidewalks) on her street. It sure could used them.
I have a few comments.
1. "Mt. Lebanon has sidewalks." That's what I heard my whole life before looking for a home in Mt. Lebanon. As our home search went on, I saw so many homes without a sidewalk. Did they just cheap out at some point?
2. $2,666.67 per sidewalk sounds pretty high. I will admit, I am not a connoisseur of concrete.
Maybe Lebo should get with neighborhoods without sidewalks and pay half or something if the neighborhood agrees to get together (I know, that is impossible).
Many places have sidewalks. The newer neighborhoods are less likely to have them than the older neighborhoods. Still, there are some strange patterns. The "front" of Sunset Hills (e.g. Broadmoor, Jonquil, Catalpa) has Sidewalks, but much of the "back" does not (e.g. the area around Sleepy Hollow and Country Club).
The weirdest for me is that the whole stretch of Sleepy Hollow from Richland to the Dormont line has sidewalks except for two houses, one on each side of the street. One of the houses has a one-foot-wide strip of brick adjacent to the curb that I guess is supposed to be a sidewalk -- sorry, but I'm not going to bother tightrope-walking a little brick strip to avoid walking in that dude's grass.
I love how Markham Drive doesn't have sidewalks down near Altadena and Seneca.
Geez, how many kids use that road to get to school? They basically have to walk on the street around 2 corners.
I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS HASN'T BEEN REQUIRED IN THE PAST. IT IS REQUIRED IN ERIE IF YOU ARE SO MANY YARDS FROM A SCHOOL. AND IT IS DANGEROUS TO WALK ON THE YARDS ESPECIALLY IN THE SNOW. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE YEARS AGO.
I am curious how the folks that are getting sidewalks (now or in the future) feel about it. It will give them issues they did not have when they bought their home: snow removal, loss of yard, possibly loss of trees, maybe the need for a retaining wall ...
As if people around here actually bother to shovel their walks...
Regarding the comment that it's dangerous to walk on the grass in the snow, I beg to differ. I had to walk down a steep hill (Hilf) to school, and all the kids walked in the grass strip by the curb when it was snowy, because the walks were so often either unshoveled, or shoveled but not salted. Snow on grass gave far better traction than either the sidewalk or the street.
The odds are only about 50/50 of having the sidewalk in front of any particular house in Lebo cleared before school starts in the morning. Meaning that the kids walk halfway in the snow regardless of whether there are sidewalks.
When I was a kid I had to walk up hill both ways, no sidewalks or shoes, and ice cream cost a nickle!
You may well have walked uphill both ways, subjectively, at least.
If the endpoints of a hilly path are at the same altitude, and a person walks slower up hill than down hill, then he will have more uphill walking time than downhill walking time, no matter which way he's going.
This effect is more pronounced on a bicycle, than on foot, though.
Sidewalks in Virginia Manor???!!!! That war was fought and decided sometime in the 1960s and early 70's. Seriously, if my recollection is correct there was a "movement" of some parents back then and it died pretty quickly. I made it to school unscathed but back then there was a PAT bus (one of the small ones that had a look like the old old trolleys) that came up Larchmont and went through the Manor picking kids up for Jefferson.
Jefferson,
Have you ever noticed we have school the first day of every snow? Then we delay the second day; so the sidewalks are not shoveled.
I paid for my own sidewalks and resent cheap parents who won’t pay their own way. They must have better political connections than I do. If they want a sidewalk they can have mine and they can shovel it.
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