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Comment by joefife | Hacker News Reader

Indeed. It's a very strange argument - sidewalks require significantly less to sustain.

For a start, the build quality can be a lot lower - a sidewalk doesn't need to support lorries with 13t loads.

As for maintenance, the damage to them is far less, and repairing a sidewalk would usually be a small diversion rather than the drama of a road closure.

I'm not quite sure why anyone would think sidewalks are an unthinkable burden.

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It depends on the city/state/county you are in and the local building codes. The city I grew up in the code was to have a sidewalk in pretty much all new construction building conditions except in some very narrow ones. It was very nice. Biking/walking was easy and 'built in'. The sidewalk at my parents house I think is the original one the builder put in, in the 1940s. With a small segment replaced because tree damage. If you DIY the cost is fairly low, just a lot of work. But if you hire a contractor to do it, the cost can spiral pretty quickly. If the cost is folded into the price of the house you would not notice it much. But to add on after the fact it can be a bit of sticker shock.

$350k per mile length of a 6 foot wide sidewalk. That's what people don't want to spend money on.

Where did you get that figure?

Here's Virginia's cost guidelines for roadway[1] (2000, so the numbers are surely higher now). Even at $350k/mile, sidewalk is 2/3 the cost of a paved suburban road.

1 - https://www.virginiadot.org/business/resources/gasb-roadway_...

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