For most people, a few cracks in a walkway is an annoyance. For Charlotte Lee, it’s dangerous. A few cracks or some lifted pavement may mean her wheelchair can’t get through safely.
And for some time, that’s exactly what she’s been dealing with on the Industrial Road bridge near Wal-Mart.
Much of the walkway itself is in pretty good shape. But cracked concrete at either end makes it difficult for Lee to navigate on her regular trips with her friend, Rhonda Cunningham. And at the walkway’s south end, the concrete around a manhole cover sticks out above the rest of the sidewalk by maybe an inch — again, enough to cause a problem for wheels or even trip an unwary walker.
“It’s not just for we who are disabled,” Lee said. “It’s for the kids going across that walkway at night on their bicycles, or anyone who might stumble.”
Earl Bosak, area engineer for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said he’d look at the Industrial Road walkway and see if it needed work. The walkway is KDOT’s responsibility and the state has taken care of it before, Bosak said — three years ago, when semis turning onto Industrial were regularly breaking up one end of the sidewalk, Bosak helped arrange for repaving and some additional concrete work to try and prevent future accidents.
“If someone would call and let us know, we’ll take a look and get it repaired,” Bosak said. “We know that’s her means of transport.”
Lee said she had first called in about 2 1/2 years ago, and found out that the state, rather than the city, had responsibility for that stretch of the road. She has called again since then, although not this year.
City Engineer Keith Beatty said the issue had come up before and that his office had asked KDOT to look into it. But tragedy may have pushed it off the radar screen.
“About the time we requested that they do that was about the time that those two maintenance guys got killed,” Beatty said, referring to the 2005 accidents that killed KDOT workers Richard Cunningham and Shawn McDonald. “So it got kind of put on hold.”
Lee lives at Horizon Plaza, so the walkway is her best connection to Wal-Mart. The L-CAT bus is an option and one she used for the first time last week, but she likes her independence — and not having to pay a bus fee.
“L-CAT and me got along pretty well, but I shouldn’t have to,” she said. “You wouldn’t tell a person not to walk on that concrete, so why should it hinder me?”
“I just think it’s time we look at this situation,” Lee said. “I think three years is enough. It really is.”