The City of St. Petersburg hosted its first Sidewalk Master Plan public meeting via Zoom Tuesday, for residents who live in Council districts 2, 3, 4 and 6. Staff outlined project objectives, what has been completed so far and what is to come. Community members were also allowed to provide input.
The Sidewalk Master Plan will provide a framework to improve safety, accessibility and livability in St. Petersburg. Additionally, the document “will adapt over time to create a roadmap to meet changing needs, opportunities, state and federal guidelines,” according to the City’s website.
Evan Birk, engineering and capital improvements department design manager, and Cheryl Stacks, transportation manager, gave a presentation at the virtual gathering.
“The Sidewalk Master Plan allows us an opportunity to identify those missing sidewalk segments using a geographic database, hear from the community as to priorities and then come up with a more strategic way of prioritizing how we would complete the gaps in our sidewalk network,” Stacks said at the meeting.
The City has already completed a database assembly and gap analysis. A substantial part of the process was updating and verifying the data the City already had, Birk added. This can help ensure that the team makes “vital” decisions.
Additionally, City staff conducted a survey earlier this year to seek public input. According to Birk, the St. Petersburg government received 862 responses.
“The first thing that stood out was that residents were concerned about both new sidewalk construction and maintaining the sidewalks that already exist,” he said. “Within many communities, there are sidewalks that are not connected in useful ways.”
Residents indicated, Birk added, that they would prefer the City to focus on projects near destination access areas, such as schools and commercial corridors. He explained that some community members wanted sidewalks in residential neighborhoods. However, some did not.
“Now that we’ve a good identification of the gaps and the network, we have started to use the information associated with the online survey to develop what the draft prioritization criteria should be so that we can make a data-driven approach to prioritizing sidewalk segments,” Stacks said.
She added that the City will consider gaps that are in proximity to destination access locations per resident comment. Additionally, the team will strategically review segments near major streets or community assets. For example, Stacks explained that additions or updates could be beneficial in areas near bus stations so that people could have better access to public transportation if needed.
“We still have more work to do to validate or verify the feasibility of those segments,” Stacks said. “We do have right of way that’s available. We don’t have an extraordinary amount of utilities that would be in the way that could not be relocated.”
She added that the City will begin prioritizing maintenance and accessibility requests for sidewalk repairs or updates. Additionally, staff will work on formalizing the Master Plan and ensuring that the document is in alignment with St. Petersburg government policies.
Stacks explained that sustainability, historic preservation and other factors will be considered. This is when different departments “that come into the picture would be a more significant part of the conversation.”
“We’re moving along to work toward getting these next phases underway as quickly as we can as funding allows so that we can continue to make progress,” she said. “We definitely see the need to have this in place to prioritize those investments.”
A second virtual public meeting for residents who live in Council districts 1, 5, 7 and 8 will be held Sept. 22. For more information about the Master Plan, visit this link.