Op/Ed: The Path to Happiness: Sidewalks

I, like many of the other citizens of this beautiful city, enjoy the recent tourist-friendly developments created in the last decade. However, the city should place greater emphasis in revitalizing the run-down residential roads because the lack of sidewalks in these areas is unacceptable. As a solution, the city should begin projects to build sidewalks in residential areas because our residents would enjoy living a healthier lifestyle as well as experience an increase in their property values.

The installation of sidewalks in these areas will create a healthier community in the Lake Tahoe region. For example, the AARP states that people who live in sidewalked neighborhoods are forty-seven percent more likely to be active at least thirty-nine minutes a day as opposed to those who do not. As a result, with the opportunities that sidewalks give for walking, studies have revealed “that people with access to sidewalks “are more likely to . . . meet the Surgeon General’s recommendations for physical activity”, leading to a healthier lifestyle.

In addition, because sidewalks reduce the need for short car trips, installing sidewalks in our town would save gas for our citizens and reduce the emissions coming into our ecosystem. The 'Health By Design' website states that forty percent of car trips in the U.S are less than two miles, a distance which is easily walkable, and adding sidewalks will greatly reduce the amount of gasoline we use as well as reduce the carbon-emissions in our community because we will walk more.

In addition, installing sidewalks in residential areas of our town will also create economic opportunities by raising real estate values, improving the chances for potential vacation home buyers to invest in Tahoe. For example, the AARP states that although a walkway for a median sized home might cost approximately two-thousand dollars, the investment will return up to fifteen times the amount in resale value, demonstrating that building sidewalks is a very logical and risk-free investment. Furthermore, in a study done by the Urban Land Institute in the year 1999, four communities in Maryland showed that home buyers were willing to pay twenty thousand dollars more for homes with sidewalked neighborhoods. The Real Estate Research Corporation also predicted that during the next twenty-five years, property values would rise fastest in these neighborhoods, showing that walkability is a very attractive investment to homebuyers. In another study done in 2009 by the organization, CEOs for Cities, in a scenario where two houses were identical, the sidewalked home sold for between four to thirty-four thousand dollars more than the house without the sidewalk, proving how sidewalks will always add value to a home. Therefore, instead of revitalizing Tahoe by building new tourist attractions, the city should instead spend its energies revitalizing our run-down residential areas by building sidewalks.The benefits that Lake Tahoe’s residents would experience if we build sidewalks simply cannot be ignored, and it will be foolish not to reap the opportunities that sidewalks can offer to the South Tahoe’s community.

By Oscar G. Ortega
South Tahoe High Junior