Dear City Council members--
First of all, thank you for all of your time and hard work serving our city. I know that you have many demands on the city time
and resources, and that you work long hours trying to balance these the best you can.
As you set priorities for this year's Work Plan, I very much urge you to add sidewalks on Sharon Rd to the list of projects to
work on.
I have lived on Sharon Rd for 7 years. Every school morning we watch dozens of kids trudge up our hill on the way to La Entrada.
They meet dozens more coming from both sides of Alameda and continue on up Sharon Rd to La Entrada. The last 3 years, I have been
walking that stretch in the morning with my daughter, who is now in 6th grade at La Entrada. If you could see what that block of
Sharon Rd (between Alameda de Las Pulgas and Altschul) looks like in the morning, you would be horrified. There are no sidewalks.
Neighbors have encroached on the public right away. Kids climb up and down embankments, duck under tree branches and stumble on
gravel, while dragging their wheeled backpacks behind them through the mud. Or worse yet they walk on the road, just as Sharon Rd
is backed up with a steady stream of cars as parents leave La Entrada and head to work. It is the scariest on rainy days and
garbage days, when children have to swerve far out into the road to avoid deep puddles or garbage cans. Cars and school buses, if
they are paying attention, stop to avoid hitting them, but it is just a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt. I know a
family who lives at the corner of Alameda de Las Pulgas and Sharon Rd. They drive their 3 children that one block to school,
because they think it's too dangerous to walk. Unfortunately that just adds more traffic.
Hillview Middle School got sidewalks recently, and they are gorgeous and wonderful and heavily used and thank you so much for all
the hard work you did getting them.I mean it! I am only asking for equity. There are already sidewalks on every other road
approaching La Entrada. Putting in sidewalks along this one block of Sharon Rd, just one block, would make things so much for
safer for the dozens of children who funnel up the road every morning to school. It would also be safer for all of those,
including senior citizens, who walk up to the Safeway shopping center in Sharon Heights. I myself have twice tripped on the rough
gravel on that section and ended up with gravel embedded in my knee, so seeing my elderly neighbors walk up there makes me
nervous.
Please, please, please consider adding sidewalks to Sharon Rd between Alameda and Altschul. It would greatly increase the safety
of so many of your citizens.
Thank you for consideration and for all of your hard work. I am happy to speak with you more about this issue if you would like.
best regards,
Linda Barman
Sharon Rd resident, Las Lomitas and La Entrada parent
