SAN ANTONIO — District One City Councilman Roberto Treviño is on a mission to bring change to San Antonio. He's the 'sidewalker'.
Nearly 2,000 miles of dangerous sidewalks, in the city, need repair. His approach is like the pothole problem. "If we know there is a pothole in the street, it effectively makes the entire street unusable. That's the same approach we are taking with sidewalks," he said.
For the next two months, the city will make repairs to sidewalks in the Tobin Hill neighborhood as part of a pilot program.
Councilman Treviño has found a way for the city to fund the repairs. "We want to create programs and methodology through cost-savings that we have a better way to doing our sidewalks," he said. And then apply that to the broken sidewalks."
He said this is part of a master plan. Treviño said infrastructure impacts our quality of life.
He said when a sidewalk is right up against a curb, you are paying for the curb with sidewalk money. The councilman said it isn't necessary. Treviño said the city needs to get back to building sidewalks that are separate from the curb. He said this is a smarter approach. He said offsetting the sidewalk means crews wouldn't also have to redo driveways.
"Not building curbs and redoing streets with sidewalk dollars is a better approach," he said. "And that cost-savings means we can come back and use those dollars we have already allocated to our sidewalks to start repairing sidewalks. That's a big deal."
The work will begin on East French Place Monday. Martin Castanon has lived on the street for more than 20 years. He has a damaged sidewalk in front of his home. "I feel bad for older people because they could almost trip," he said. It has been bugging me, and I have lived here for 24 years."
Castanon has never seen any changes to his sidewalk, until now. The city will fix it. Councilman Treviño said sidewalks are part of what he calls a complete streets package.
"Sidewalks, streets, and bike lanes all work together comprehensively," he said. "So we should be thinking of all of this together."
After the two month pilot program, Treviño will show the results to all of city council and bring this up during budget discussions in the summer.
POPULAR ON KENS5.COM: