To be on alert in San Diego, maybe you shouldn’t look up – but instead look down.
At least 39,000 tripping hazards and more than 14,000 insufficient curb ramps were identified by a group of interns who inspected 3,000 miles of the city’s sidewalks.
The engineering students from local universities, hired in February to conduct the study, are just over halfway done inspecting San Diego’s 5,000 miles of sidewalks.
The review will be taken into account as part of the estimated $2 billion infrastructure problems the city hopes to fix sometime in the near future.
City Councilman Mark Kersey, who spearheaded the project, said he’s not surprised by the results.
“We know there would be a lot of problems because we got a lot of complaints,” he said. “This really helps us in terms of actual data, so we know where the problem sidewalks are and we can make this part of our long-term infrastructure plan.”
Kersey did point out that the interns started inspecting the worst and oldest parts of the city first. Still, some of the sidewalks haven’t been renovated since they were put in 75 years ago.
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Once all the data is collected, city officials will get to work to fix the sidewalk issues, he said.
“If we want people to walk around and enjoy the sunshine … We need to have sidewalks that are in good shape and that’s what this is all about,” Kersey said.
