COLUMBUS, Ohio — The calls for change are being heard loud and clear in the wake of the death of 11-year-old Elizabeth Robertson-Rutland.
She was hit by two vehicles as she was crossing McNaughten Road early Wednesday morning to get to her bus stop.
Right away, her grandmother told 10TV she wanted to see a change, with the school district moving the bus stop and the city adding sidewalks.
As it turns out, that area of McNaughten Road is 25th on a list of 52 areas slated for sidewalk installation in the Columbus area.
According to the city, a number of factors go into compiling the list from the Department of Public Service, including:
- Amount of vehicular traffic
- Amount of 311 service requests
- The Mayor’s Focus Neighborhoods
- Presence of worn dirt paths in grass and/or visible pedestrian use of berms/shoulders
- Locations where the District-Wide School Travel Plan/Safe Routes to School recommends new sidewalk
- MORPC pedestrian crash database
- Destinations of interest (rec centers, libraries, food stores, shopping centers, medical care, etc.)
But even once that list is compiled, there can be delayed movement. A lot of that has to do with funding and the potential to piggyback onto other street projects.
For instance, in just focusing at the top of the list, the No. 1 project would cost $2.17 million, but it is not currently funded. No. 2 on the list has a cost of $987,000 and is being completed along with another ODOT project.
The third project on the list costs $1.8 million and is currently in the design process. So No. 3 is making more headway than No. 1.
Part of that comes down to funding. The city budgets $4 million for sidewalks every year, so if one project takes up a large chunk of money, the city may have to move down the list to find other projects that can fit within the budget.
That could mean leapfrogging a project that is higher on the list but costs more.
So, the McNaughten Road project, which has a cost of about $7 million, may be on the list for quite some time. Once projects are funded, the timeline to completion is about three years.
Meanwhile, school district leaders say they have no record of any previous complaints about the bus stop at McNaughten Road and Cherry Hill. But they add that they track their records by caller, not by location.