News editor
Sidewalks on A Street from Hillsboro Elementary School west to Adams will get summer upgrades, courtesy of a $245,500 award from the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program.
“It’s going to take quite a bit of sidewalk where kids are walking from 5 feet to 8 feet wide,” City Administrator Larry Paine said. “Bikers and walkers can coexist on the same path.
“We’ve been waiting for two or three years for that,” USD 410 Superintendent Steve Noble said. “I didn’t know with all the stuff going on with cuts if it would come through.”
Paine said in addition to the Adams St. section, the sidewalk will cross beside a high school parking lot over to Grand St., where there is already adequate sidewalk. A sidewalk on the west side of the school complex on Ash St. may also get an upgrade. Paine said he hadn’t received the official award from KDOT yet, so he wasn’t certain how much the city can do with what they will receive.
“We’re ducking trees, we have narrow sidewalks, cracked sidewalks,” Noble said. “Now we’ll have a nice sidewalk all the way to the school and not have to worry about obstacles. It will make things much more inviting and safer for children and their parents.”
Construction will begin after the last day of school in May, Paine said. Vogts-Parga Construction of North Newton was the successful bidder for the project.