Now that the City has eliminated cost-sharing with regard to sidewalk repair and replacement, it seems like sidewalks are under construction everywhere, at least in my neighborhood. Maybe its like noticing restaurants when you’re hungry, or pet stores when you’re thinking about your dog.
For a three year period, residents have forked-over about $330,000 per year toward cost-sharing for sidewalk repair. Will we see it spike upward now that the city is picking up the total cost, or will it remain about the same with residents getting upset that they are left out of available funds for their sidewalk repair/replacement requests. No good deed by the City goes with resident complaints.
There’s another wrinkle to the good-will provided by the City; concrete guys get up early, and start pounding cement slabs into smaller concrete chunks for removal at 6:45 am, or about 75 minutes earlier than the garbage guys are allowed to roll thru the neighborhood emptying garbage cans. Concrete removal equipment is a lot louder than garbage trucks, so why are the concrete guys allowed to finish their work days earlier than the garbage guys? Noise is noise, and loud is loud.
I don’t have a horse in the race since I get up at 6am, so it doesn’t make much difference to me if I’m listening to concrete guys pounding concrete, or garbage truck guys making garbage disappear.
One thing is for sure, the garbage business is always picking-up.
While it is not quiet, I think that mud-jacking many of the intact sidewalk sections would be a lot less costly than replacement. I remember somebody (a union guy?) telling me that the two methods cost about the same. I find that hard to believe.