Prioritizing Jackson's needs

Once again blood pressures shoot through the roof! We open the newspaper to read the article in the Southeast Missourian, "MoDOT will improve 6 miles of sidewalks along East and West Jackson Blvd!" Completely replacing sidewalks with concrete, no less, rather than "patching"! Year after year the Missouri Department of Transportation is whining about not enough tax dollars to repair roads, bridges, etc. The disrepair of all Missouri roads is despicable. Patch, patch, patch! If they do decide to lay a new strip of highway, it is so thin that areas crack through in a matter of months. The railroad track in Jackson has been in awful disrepair for years, has probably 10,000 or more vehicles a day cross it. It is so bad you have to come to a complete stop to cross the track to keep from completely damaging wheel alignments. Coming to a stop, all traffic slows down with only a few cars able to get through the stop light. MoDOT suddenly has the money to completely replace a sidewalk that probably no more than three people, on a busy day, use.

I can't remember a time when there were really any people with disabilities using the sidewalk or that there was ever enough foot traffic on those walkways that you couldn't watch out for the cracks. How about patching the bad areas? It was compliant when it was built, wasn't it? Maybe it is time for the Americans with Disabilities Act to be rewritten to be reasonable and sensible!

CAROL and TEE TRANKLER, Jackson