TAMPA, Fla. — The City of Tampa is working to creating a city-wide, comprehensive sidewalk plan that could specifically help protect your kids walking to and from school.
Tampa Transportation and Stormwater Services Department officials will go before City Council on Thursday to explain how they recently developed a new comprehensive citywide Sidewalk Screening and Project Prioritization process.
City engineers found several sidewalk gaps. So they created a new sidewalk selection process, which looks at:
- Proximity to schools; with priority to higher percentages of students, who walk or bike to school, over those with students, who commute primarily by bus or car
- Closest to transit facilities
- Support Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) goals
- Located along our busiest streets
- Locations with ease of construction and length of the existing sidewalk gap
The Fiscal Year 2020 sidewalk budget is $870,000. This money will primarily fund repairs and maintenance needs of existing sidewalks, ramps, and crosswalks citywide, according to city documents.
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The City's current sidewalk budget allows for approximately one mile of new sidewalk to be constructed each year. City leaders are still accepting the Sidewalk Petition applications. Requests for sidewalk repairs and restoration, and for new sidewalks can be submitted via the City of Tampa's Call Center by calling (813) 274-3101.
Improving the City's sidewalk Infrastructure is a key component of the City's Vision Zero Initiative.
The City of Tampa Department of Transportation and Stormwater Services maintains a sidewalk network that is more than 825 linear miles long.
