Finance Committee — 03/02/2022 Page 8
Thank you Mr. Mayor. So as you know the city has many miles of sidewalk. This project working collaboratively with
Nashua Regional Planning Commission will allow us to inventory all of that sidewalk and assess the condition of it,
defining where we have problems that don’t meet ADA requirements. This project as | said, will be joint with them. NRPC
will fund a crew of collection folks — two people, and the city will do the same, and we'll work collaboratively throughout all
the sidewalk segments and collect data.
As part of the effort, we will also seek public input. There will be a public portal where people can pin on a map and be
able to submit a comment about where they see a current issue that we should consider for future improvement and will
also present the findings and other information at public meetings. All this data will be collected in accordance with the
State-wide asset data exchange which is a State-wide system for conformity and I’d be happy to answer any questions if
anyone has one.
Mayor Donchess
Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you Mr. Hudson. Our streets are in some rough shape throughout the entire city. |
appreciate the public portal. Would that be similar to what we did for the Master Plan where people can just pin a street
and then put a comment saying there are potholes, not potholes obviously, but broken sidewalk or that there is a sidewalk
needed in this area. Is that the type of commenting that you'll be looking for?
Dan Hudson, City Engineer
Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s my understanding. That was found to be very effective for the Nashua planning process
and we intend to do the same thing here - cast a wide net and try to seek all input that people have. As we go through a
prioritization type of exercise too looking at a variety of factors which sidewalks are in close proximity to public buildings,
schools, that sort of thing and try to get our hands around prioritizing future improvement plans for certain sections. So
yeah, it will be an open process and we welcome everybody to comment.
Alderman Klee
Just a quick follow-up. | really do appreciate that. So just clarification - is this project just to look at current sidewalks that
exist or the potential for other sidewalks that just don’t exist? We often here some people talk about some of the main
streets, like Main-Dunstable, or something to that where there is no sidewalk for their children to walk to school. It’s
outside of the 1,000 feet but it’s still dangerous for their children to walk. So would they have the opportunity there as well
or is it just for the broken sidewalks?
Dan Hudson, City Engineer
We will be looking at the sidewalks that exist and assessing their condition but | do fully expect as part of this that people
can comment on where they would like to see sidewalks. There are some areas where we have a sidewalk and then we
have a gap and another sidewalk in areas we can look where that can be filled in. Then of course as you mentioned,
there are roads where people desire new sidewalks. So everything will be on the table in terms of gathering comment
information, but the list really will be prioritized to find out what we have and prioritize where the sections are that we
should focus rehab on the most.
Alderman Klee
Just one more quick. | know that you have been made aware of the grant for Locke Street and Whitney and that whole
project there. That was a grant that we received almost 5 years ago, | think, that did the sidewalks for those two areas
because of the walk to school. When we do this project and we get a list of the streets that need to be done will we
possibly try to work with our grant writer to see if there are any grants that could help us kind of accomplish this goal
especially those for the safe to school? | don’t know if that grant is still available. But different things like that so that we
can insure that we have less cost to our taxpayers. Will we be taking that into consideration?
Dan Hudson, City Engineer
Yes certainly. You know through the infrastructure funding that is coming from the federal government, we understand
