Subject:  Street and sidewalk maintenance

To:                         Councillor Mathieu Fleury, Mayor James Watson
From:                    Larry Newman, Sandy Hill

Some weeks ago, I walked across Laurier Avenue East at Nelson on a nice brick paved intersection, and noticed that the city had used asphalt to fill in the spaces where the bricks were missing. This was not the first time that I had observed this and I took pictures.  I thought that I would, someday, write a letter of complaint to the City Paving Department.

A few days ago, I was walking on Sweetland Ave and noticed that the city (I suppose) had recently patched part of the sidewalk.

This seems to be a longstanding practice and I think it looks shoddy and temporary. This sort of patching is everywhere. What is the point of laying out an attractive, decorative brick crosswalk, then, when a brick disappears (crumbles, stolen?), spending a few minutes patching it with the cheapest material one can find?

One has to ask another question: why do these bricks pop out anyway? Are they laid poorly? Is our climate too demanding for brick crosswalks?

The bottom line is that I object. I object to using the lowest cost repair that cheapens the look of a crosswalk that we had decided deserves a bit of a decorative architecture. I want the City to remove the asphalt patch and do the right thing – replace a brick with a brick. Retain the original look.

Care about your/our crosswalk architecture.

Photos Larry Newman