Until I recently attended the Brentwood Mall Redevelopment Open House, I was under the impression that when a brand new house is built, the builders are required by the City of Burnaby to pave a sidewalk along the property or pay the City to pave it for them. A City of Burnaby representative at the Open House mentioned that individual house builders are not required by law to build a sidewalk when constructing a new house. The following house at Delta Ave and Halifax St on the west side of Delta Ave was built about 2 years ago and has no sidewalk in front of it. Lucky for the owner that they don't have to worry about shovelling a sidewalk. Pedestrians (including children and the elderly) that need to get to Ridgelawn Drive from Brentwood Park Elementary and beyond along Delta are required to walk in the southbound lane on Delta to get to their destination. As the photos below show, this stretch can be very busy as Brentlawn Drive, Halifax Street and the lane behind Brentlawn Drive all join Delta Ave within a few meters of each other while pedestrians and drivers try to get to wherever they are going. A lady pushing a baby stroller had to walk in the road to get to her destination. I think she had just finished dropping her child off at school on Delta Ave.
When walking southbound on the west side of Delta, the sidewalk ends soon after one crosses at Brentlawn Drive. The absence of a sidewalk continues until Ridgelawn Drive.
Regardless of how this has occurred, somebody has failed somewhere along the line. The question remains, who is responsible when a tragedy occurs? We can't just right it off and say "Oops, we never foresaw that happening!"
The sidewalk bylaw needs revision. With an aging population and increased traffic, a contiguous network of sidewalks is a necessity. Instead of blindly spending money repaving streets that are in good condition through the city's "infrastructure renewal program" , they should be completing the network of sidewalks.
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