Not a typo, unfortunately. And, even more unfortunately, planned for my sleepy suburban street.
And not even “a” sidewalk. For that paltry sum, we get two half-sidewalks, on opposite sides of the street. That, together with a new mid-block crosswalk, is TOV government’s answer to the Town Council directive to “put a sidewalk” on my street.
I am going to take a couple of posts to tell the story of this, as I see it.
But, to cut to the chase, the punchline involves ~$2.5 million in free COVID money that the Town picked up. Which has now become use-it-or-lose-it COVID money.
Which, I think, explains the Town’s decision to fire the money cannon at my street. Mostly. The terrain is also difficult in spots.
To cut to the final chase, I’m going to make the case that this is poor value. And, that this is unsurprising, given that the process by which the Town is spending a free $2.5 million has little focus on value to the citizens. I don’t believe the Town is deaf. It may respond if you complain. But that’s not the same as a value-focused planning process.
Anyway, this will be the story of how my Town is getting rid of $2.5M before it evaporates providing better pedestrian safety along Glen Ave SW.
It’s going to take a few posts to tell this. This is not my idea of fun.
FWIW, my sole written comment to the engineer in charge of this is that he produce one sidewalk, on one side of the street or the other.
Part of this series of posts is to try to explain why I think he won’t or can’t do that.
First things first: Could I literally pave this street with money, for that price?
Answer: Sure. In the sense of tiling the surface of the existing asphalt with U.S. currency.
A piece of U.S. paper currency covers about 16 square inches. (Bills are a bit over 6″ x 2.5″). Therefore $2.5M in $1 bills would cover (2,500,000 x 16 / 144 =~) 260,000 square feet. The street in question is about 25 feet wide and maybe 1400 feet long, so it’s (25 * 1400 = ) 35,000 square feet.
For $2.5M I could pave (tile) my street with a 50/50 mix of $5 and $10 bills.
My point is not (just) to be a wise-ass, but to get a kind of gut-check on this. There’s a lot of streets in Vienna that have nothing for sidewalks. Town staff show an almost complete reluctance to spend local taxpayer money on sidewalks. (Preferring to wait for grants, I guess, no matter how slow that process.)
My only point is that my gut tells me this is a lot of money to spend, for so little additional functionality to the citizens. In a Town that is far from lavish about spending it’s own taxpayers’ money on sidewalks.
So I’m going to take a couple of posts-to-be to analyze the situation. As I see it. FWIW.
