Temporary walking path created along Cesar Chavez Blvd. in San Luis, Ariz.
SAN LUIS, Ariz. – Students and residents here have a temporary path to walk safely along Cesar Chavez Boulevard until such time as the roadway is widened.
The boulevard currently lacks sidewalks, but the city recently laid down a thick layer of asphalt seal in a mile-long path next to the roadway from William Brooks Avenue to 8th Avenue.
Eulogio Vera, the city’s public works director, said the pathway can serve students walking to and from elementary schools in the area as well as people who walk or run for exercise.
“We knew that (the path) is something that’s necessary,” he said. “We would see women pushing strollers or students walking along without there being a sidewalk. This is a temporary solution, because plans call for widening Cesar Chavez Boulevard, and that project will include wider sidewalks for pedestrians.
Cesar Chavez Boulevard, one of two main thoroughfares into and through the city, connects the east and west sides of the city and eventually becomes State Route 195, also known as the Robert A. Vaughan Expressway that leads to Yuma’s east side. Growing traffic is prompting San Luis to widen the roadway within its municipal limits.
Vera said the asphalt material used to create the walkway is low cost but is durable enough to serve until the widening takes place. The city’s parks and recreation employee did the work of building the path.
The city also extended a branch of the pathway, leading along Seventh Avenue north to California Street to serve residents in the area, patrons walking to and from the nearby San Luis Library and students going to and from Ed Pastor Elementary School.
While the path along Cesar Chavez will be gone once the road is widened, the city plans over the long term to build permanent pathways in a network that would allow pedestrian to walk safely through San Luis. The system would be similar to the series of paths or “andadores” that have been created over the past decade in Somerton.
Vera said his the public works, parks and recreation and other city departments are finalizing a walking and bike path plan that will identify routes of the paths.
That plan will presented to landowners, among them the Yuma County Water Users Association, as part of the process of seeking rights-of-way for the paths.