New ‘paths’ are great — but so are foundations

Due to gas hikes, many of us may be considering downgrading our vehicles for Fred Flintstone’s mode of transport or more than likely are dusting off our bicycles to make our daily commutes to the office or to school.

During the Chico City Council meeting on March 15, on agenda item 2.4, council was asked by our city manager for authorization to execute purchase agreements to acquire nine parcels of real property, which amounted to a right of way purchase. The parcels run alongside Hwy 99 and will allow construction of Phase 5 of the Bikeway 99 Project.

These purchases total a segment of 0.44 miles at a cost of $1,535,593 (Walmart donated what would have cost an additional $18,100). The city noted the cost was $835,950, I am not sure where they came up with those additional savings or if I can’t ‘math’ or they can’t ‘math’ (in which case we are in big trouble). These properties included AM/PM, JC Penney, Olive Garden, In-n-Out, Red Lobster, the vacant IHOP property, Applebee’s, Panera, and Walmart.

The previous council sought a federal Active Transportation Program grant which was approved to fund the expansion of the existing bike path that ended near the

Chico Marketplace (aka the ‘New Mall’ to us old-timers) near Teichert Ponds and extend past Walmart. Construction includes work to haul debris, level land, pour concrete, stripe, make safe crossing areas, and install lighting.

I understand how grants fund capital projects such as the bike path. Back when Randall Stone was mayor, several of us asked if this was a one-time grant allocation for startup costs and whether there was funding allotted for ongoing maintenance and operations. We were Stonewalled and summarily blocked from his mayoral social media page for asking questions we hope any responsible community members would ask to ensure the city’s fiscal responsibility of taxpayer funded items (yes, your federal and state tax dollars fund grants).

While we want our city to be forward thinking and plan for these capital improvements and find creative ways to fund them, we must also consider if our city is in a position to maintain those improvements. If we do choose to proceed, what gets cut from the budget to fund a bike path that may see minimal use by some residents who don’t feel safe using the existing bike paths? Or how do we even begin to address the need to bring our existing roadways and bike paths up to par, let alone get them in excellent shape, if we are spending our precious dollars on projects we can’t hope to maintain at this rate?

We have neighborhoods that have not had attention to their roadways in many years. We have decrepit outbuildings, city signage, and other areas within our parks and public spaces that sorely need attention.

We keep working on making this the city we want in the future, but we don’t have the foundation yet to actually make that our reality.

I support bike riding, the expansion of our bike paths, the interconnectedness this improvement would bring to our city to close gaps between our existing bike paths, and I also give kudos to the city staff who wrote in for these types of grants and secured the funding. However, I worry about our ability to sustain what we take on when we make these types of improvements only to keep marching to our city’s General Plan. Truly this is a concern of many Chicoans.

Nowhere in the report that accompanied this agenda item did it address the ability of our city to fund the maintenance and operations. Per the State of the City Address given last week, I think our city is desperate to obtain a majority vote in order to pass the city’s proposed 1% sales tax measure that will be on the ballot this November 2022 to provide the maintenance that projects such as this one requires. If we have postponed attention to our roadways for this long, they are banking on that measure passing to fund the much-needed projects all over this city that have been queued up for way too long and begin chipping away at our failing infrastructure.

So, which is it, do we want a new bike path or do we want our roads repaired? Should we call Fred Flintstone? At this rate, maybe we should just lean in to the bike path with our gas prices skyrocketing, but that is a whole other can of worms!