One of the bullet items on Brookfield Trustee Shannon Devitz’s wish list has been to build sidewalks, connecting the Brookfield school’s campus to Brookfield Center and, maybe, Yankee Run Golf Course.
“I would love to be able to walk around town,” she said. “A healthy community needs to be a walk-able community.”
Trumbull County Deputy Engineer Gary Shaffer said he thinks it’s doable. The township and engineer’s office have started discussions about how to undertake a sidewalk project, and school Supt. Toby Gibson said he also is exploring building sidewalks, although he missed a March 6 deadline to apply to a state program for a planning grant.
There are several grant funds out there for sidewalks, Shaffer said. It’s all about finding the best match for the township to apply to.
The trustees, Shaffer and Pat Etchie, a certified planner and grant writer with Mannik Smith Group, an engineering consulting firm, met via Zoom about drawing up a scope of work, cost estimate and engineering plans, Devitz said. The trustees have not hired Mannik Smith, which would charge $6,900 for the project, but are expected to vote on the company’s hiring at their May 4 meeting.
Most, if not all, grants for sidewalks require a local match, often at 10-25 percent.
Devitz said her first concern is running a sidewalk on Warren Sharon Road. She would like to connect the green in Brookfield Center, which has sidewalks, to the stores and restaurants to the east, and the residential centers west of the golf course. People frequently walk from the residential centers – and sometimes from as far away as Valley West apartments on Brookfield Avenue – to the dollar, convenience and grocery stores. There are ditches currently along parts of the road, requiring walkers to walk on the road, creating a dangerous situation, Devitz said. A man in a motorized wheelchair has been seen making the run.
Shaffer said sidewalk projects can be broken down into phases, building smaller sections each year, such as how sidewalks were built in Kinsman. The county has been successful in getting grant money for township sidewalk projects, Shaffer said.
“I didn’t see why we wouldn’t be with that, either,” he said of sidewalks in Brookfield.
The school district recently hired S&R Concrete LLC of Masury to build a sidewalk from the main campus parking lot to Bedford Road and along the other side of Bedford for students and staff members who need to walk between the main school building and the former Tiffany’s building, which is being renovated to house the districts career-oriented classes. The firm was hired based on an estimate of $36,400. The district is working with the Trumbull County Engineer to create a crosswalk on Bedford.
Gibson said he would like to extend the sidewalk to Warren Sharon Road so people can walk to the school and the Tiffany’s building, which also will have a senior citizen center run by SCOPE Senior Services. From time to time, students and others have walked across Route 82 to get from one side of Bedford to the other.
“That would be amazing for the school, for the community, to be able to walk,” Gibson said.
School officials would like to continue to develop uses for the Tiffany’s building, such as having evening activities, Gibson said.
“If we can find an easy way to the center for people who don’t drive, why not?” he said.
