Greenwood Sidewalks

The Neighborhood Street Fund awarded last year to complete the 150′ of sidewalk, planting strip, curb, and gutter from half-way up N 90th to the corner of Phinney Ave has some glitches. Although the section of sidewalk just west of the proposed segment is pretty much textbook right of way improvement with a 5′ planting strip (the minimum for street trees) plus a 6′ sidewalk, the proposed new segment doesn’t fit because of some historical platting issues.

Basically we need a few more feet to make it work as you can see in this picture.

I talked to the landowner about giving a permanent easement so that we can have a standard improvement there and not something where the sidewalk is up next to the curb. That would mean SDOT would also pay to move his fence in a few feet. They’re going to get back to me on it, but they seemed interested. I talked to SDOT about it today and am going to apply for $20K additional funds from the Neighborhood Street Funds from this next cycle to cover the cost of the easement and moving the fence.

Considering how steep the road is in that section and how the cars come whipping through there, I think maintaining a buffer wide enough for trees to be planted there is important. It also looks better and works better in my opinion.

We can still apply for another section of 90th further east as another project in this cycle and in looking at it yesterday, that segment looks like a slamdunk since the property corner markers are already there from a recent survey and there’s plenty of room for the planting strip and sidewalks there as you can see in this picture.

Let me know if you have any comments or problems with this approach of getting a full right of way improvement and also if the idea of doing another block on 90th works or if there is another project that is a better candidate that just getting one side of 90th done. I focus on 90th because of the high volume of traffic and the connection it makes to the parks and we’re almost done doing one side.

Thanks.

-Kate