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By Kolby LaMarche
The city’s Department of Public Works (DPW) has released a detailed memo to the Public Works Commission explaining how the city manages its 130 miles of sidewalks and what work is planned through 2030, responding to years of complaints from Burlington residents, particularly those with disabilities.
The program’s main goal is to keep sidewalks safe, accessible, and in good condition while adding new sections where gaps exist, the city says.
Concrete sidewalks are designed to last 40 to 50 years, so the city has set a target of replacing roughly three miles each year. That pace allows the entire network to be refreshed within a 40-year cycle without large spikes in cost or disruption.
In 2020 the city completed a full assessment of every sidewalk using a wheeled device equipped with cameras, GPS, and sensors. The data collected that year created a public online dashboard which broke down the city’s sidewalks into ten-foot segments and assigned each segment two ratings.
One rating, called the Barrier Score, measures physical problems such as cracks, heaving, steep cross-slopes, or standing water. The second rating, the Activity/Equity Score, estimates how many people use the sidewalk by looking at nearby schools, parks, senior centers, transit stops, and other destinations. It also factors in neighborhood demographics including income, race, ethnicity, and the number of households without cars.
The two ratings are combined into a single Sidewalk Condition Index that guides staff when they decide which locations need work first.
The latest numbers show that about 13 miles of sidewalk, or ten percent of the total network, are currently in poor or serious condition, unusable to most residents.
In 2025 the city replaced or will replace 3.08 miles of existing sidewalk, the department shared. That total includes 0.54 miles rebuilt under a dedicated sidewalk contract with SD Ireland, 0.38 miles handled by the city’s own Right-of-Way crews, and 2.16 miles completed as part of larger capital projects.
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Categories: Burlington
Continuing on the path to firming an entry as a third world country.
We don’t need no stinking sidewalks. They are a symbol of capitalist oppression
Best that Burlington invests it’s resources in continuing the Mamdanification process by celebrating diversity, renouncing modernity and promoting that it’s inhabitants be better citizens by teaching them to eat rice with their hands.