DuPont buys Big Sidewalk Sucker, saves millions fixing crumbling walkways
DuPont -- It’s a treacherous bike ride through many of the neighborhoods in DuPont.
All around, there are sidewalks rising and falling, like concrete waves crashing the shore.
It’s caused by sweetgum trees planted decades ago. Their shallow roots rising, cracking, and destroying sidewalks all over the city.
Initially, neighbors were told it was their responsibility to replace the damaged sidewalks.
“I felt shocked when I found out I was going to be responsible for that,” said Eric Kaplan who has cracked and damaged sidewalks running all along the front of his house. “That’s an expense many of us can’t afford. It would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix it.”
Neighbors fought back, and won, partly thanks to a piece of equipment found by a resident on youtube.
It’s called the Big Sidewalk Sucker, an engine powered suction system that can lift sidewalk panels off the ground. That allows crews to prune the roots and re-use the same panels, instead of demolishing the sidewalks and starting over.
The price tag to replace the sidewalks the traditional way would be nearly $16 million dollars. The entire budget of the city is $15 million.
Gus Lim, DuPont’s Public Work’s Director, says the new system will cost just $2 million.
“I had to take on another approach,” said Lim. “How could I make this price smaller, so that it would be more palatable, and also a whole lot easier for us to execute.”
The work to fix the sidewalks will take half the time, and most importantly to neighbors like Eric Kaplan, the price tag won’t fall on individual homeowners.