It only took the County, oh, maybe 30 years to finish putting a sidewalk on the north side of Cottage  between Fulton and Watt. Though, to be fair, they got the part between Cottage Park and Butano done in record time - roughly 5 years. The part between Gramercy and Cottage Park was built as an afterthought for school children west of Gramercy to access Cottage School once their pedestrian routes through the field that became the Gramercy Court nursing home was approved by the County despite significant neighborhood opposition way back when. Beginning last summer, the part between Hacienda and Fulton got a bit of tidying up and the part between Cottage Park and Watt was converted from a "fake" sidewalk (just an asphalt berm to separate cars from pedestrians) to a real one - a vertical grade-separated sidewalk. The former was put in after the public told the County there was no safe way for pedestrians to walk between the large Anton Butano apartment complex and Cottage Park. The new, actual sidewalk is an improvement from the County's widespread use of roll-up curbs that make it easy for cars to ride up onto sidewalks. For context, see our posts about the Butano apartments and the dysfunctional "fake" sidewalk here, here, and here.

Regular readers of our blog know we sometimes say less-than-kind things about the County. We honestly don't like doing that, but we're not Pollyannas. Completion of the Butano-to-Cottage Park sidewalk project gives us a chance to say something nice for a change. So instead of griping that the new sidewalk is on the narrowish-side of modern urban sidewalks, and instead of harping on the fact that the project ran over its stated deadline by nearly 2 months, we just want to say "thank you" for a job done, Sacramento County. :-)

Now, onward to the myriad other thoroughfares in Arden Arcade that don't have sidewalks - the streets and roads that put pedestrians at risk in our community. Like Watt Avenue in the vicinity of the Dimick Library, for example.