(Photo: TDCB)
The cost of maintaining sidewalks is rising in the City of Moncton which has staff looking at options including removing some of them.
Design and construction director Alcide Richard says the city has some old infrastructure in place with water mains dating back to the 1870s.
“Renewing all of that infrastructure and trying to hold the tax rate and still have a good level of service and those types of things forces us to look at how we are reacting and how we compare ourselves to other municipalities,” he notes.
Richard says the days are gone where every street has two sidewalks adding how it’s not the way cities are built anymore.
Richard says Moncton actually has the highest ratio of “sidewalks to kilometres of streets” compared to many other cities in the region including Halifax.
Several city councillors had issues with the proposed sidewalk removal policy.
Council wants staff to revisit the idea with public input being sought before moving forward.
