SIDEWALKS

its five-year plan for capital projects for about $2.5 million a year. Those budgets would need to be approved annually.

In some areas where there are smaller gaps between sidewalks, the city could complete work sooner because it likely wouldn’t have to complete complex designs that account for utilities and other complications, said Jennifer Gallagher, director of the city’s Department of Public Service.

Brown said the city also is pursuing a $400,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation for sidewalks around Eakin Elementary School.

The city used a combination of factors and data to determine where it would add sidewalks around schools, Gallagher said. It considered factors including the enrollment of the schools, how many students walk to school, the school district’s own transportation plan

and access to public transportation.

Design costs will determine which sidewalks can be done, and the city is still evaluating which ones could be in that group.

In spring 2017, a group of students from Independence High School presented their own research on the need for sidewalks around their school to the council. Nasiara Jones, Shayanna Hinkle-Moore, Ayshel Gaston and Shemere Chung conducted surveys, walked busy streets and identified gaps in sidewalks.

While they were doing that research, the students discovered memorials for pedestrians who had been struck along those roads, Jones said.

Those students, all juniors and seniors now, likely won’t be in school when the new sidewalks are built, but HinkleMoore said it will benefit their younger siblings, cousins and other students.

“This will save lives,” Hinkle-Moore said.