A group of Oregon residents have asked city officials to install sidewalks on Navarre Avenue, between Coy and Lallendorf roads, to improve safety for pedestrians.

The group recently demonstrated on Navarre in hopes of raising awareness for their cause.

Anna Shank, who organized the demonstration, said sidewalks are needed on that portion of Navarre for residents walking to nearby shops and grocery stores. Residents have had to walk in the street to get to those locations because of a lack of sidewalks, she said.

Demonstration-Anna Shank, with Sandy Breier, in back, protest the lack of sidewalks. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)

“We live in Fountain Square on Navarre Avenue. Fountain Square is for people 62-years-old and over or for the mentally and physically disabled. We don’t have any sidewalks,” said Shank, who uses a wheelchair to get around. “For six years, I’ve had all the councilmen out here. I had [former] Mayor Marge Brown out here. We were promised sidewalks many times over the years. But I never heard anything more about it. Finally, I got tired of it. We made a bunch of signs and demonstrated down the right hand lane of Navarre Avenue.”

The police chief told the group it was breaking the law by walking in the road.

“He stopped us and said it was illegal. I said we would not go down the road again,” said Shank. “All I wanted to do is get somebody’s attention.”

Without sidewalks, pedestrians are at risk of getting hit by a vehicle, she said.

“We have people now in wheelchairs going down the road and I’m so afraid one of them is going to get hit by a car. It’s dangerous,” said Shank. “I’m a citizen too. I worked hard until I ended up in this chair. I should be able to go down and shop at Gordon Food Service, Alde’s, and Tractor Supply. Or, God forbid, take my grandchildren all the way down to Lallendorf to the park to get ice cream. Not having sidewalks keeps us from doing so many things.”

The group had a chance to discuss their concerns at the city’s Drainage, Roads, Buildings, and Lands Committee meeting on Aug. 22. 

Public Service Director Paul Roman said there is a process that has to be followed before sidewalks could be installed.

“For the city to have sidewalks put in, it would be an act of ordering them in. Just like sewers or any other improvements, we want property owners to petition for the improvements, and then they would be assessed,” said Roman.

The city has had a sidewalk program for years, but it only addresses the repair of existing sidewalks.

“In a way, installing new sidewalks would be very similar to that program, but it would still be assessed to property owners,” said Roman. “All the work that takes place on a property owner’s frontage would be assessed to the owner. 

Some businessmen in that area are in favor of the sidewalks. The owner of Dan R’s, located just west of Lallendorf Road, and a representative from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, had expressed their support at the committee meeting. They agreed to circulate a petition to get signatures in support of installing sidewalks.

The estimated cost to install a five foot wide sidewalk on the north side of Navarre from Coy to Lallendorf is $112,000, according to Roman.

“We really just looked at a sidewalk on the north side of Navarre, just because on the south side, there is a lot of undeveloped land. On the north side, you have only 9 percent of land that is undeveloped, and the south side has about 50 percent undeveloped. The north side really is more ready for sidewalks. So that’s been the focus. The city’s preference is to order in that sidewalk only if it is petitioned by a majority of property owners. If that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t mean it won’t be ordered in. That could still happen. But we’ve never done that. We have talked about it before, but we looked at it citywide. We looked at every major road in Oregon, where we had almost full development and we had all the infrastructure, such as sewers and water lines, in place. And you had maybe one or two properties left to develop. The city had changed our ordinance so we could order a new sidewalk in addition to repairing existing sidewalk. I think things will move forward. But the first step is to see how many property owners wish to have it done. I think there’s more property owners out there who want it, but unfortunately they just didn’t show up at the meeting.”

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