Rubber sidewalks add bounce to city foot traffic


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Crews from Rubbersidewalks Inc. install rubberized panels at Eighth Avenue South and South Rose Street in South Park. Five recycled tires are used in each panel, 57 of which make up this test walkway. The sidewalks are more elastic than concrete ones, stretching to accommodate growing tree roots, and don't have to be replaced as often, saving costs.

The other day, Eric Sweet, who lives in the neighborhood, was doing a test walk of the roughly 60-foot stretch of bluish-gray rubber panels that city transportation department crews finished installing last Friday.

"Wow," he said, taking tentative steps on the surface that was firm but had a little give. It was sort of like walking on used tires, from which the rubber panels are made. "They do feel different. It's kind of cool."

Liz Ellis, an arborist with the city's transportation department, championed bringing rubber sidewalks to Seattle after she read they were being tested in Santa Monica, Calif., and other cities.

She was intrigued not by the novelty of it. Nor did she want to give Seattleites a little extra bounce in their step as the winter gloom sets in.

She pointed to a mound in the rubber sidewalk, raised by the roots growing from one of the red maple trees on the shady, lush street of small houses on Eighth Avenue South, between South Rose and South Thistle streets.

Across the street, where the sidewalk is concrete, the growing roots of another tree had already cracked it. "That (sidewalk) was just put in about a year ago," Ellis said.

The rubberized sidewalks are more elastic, so instead of cracking, they stretch, and have to be replaced less often and are cheaper to fix, Ellis said.

She doesn't know whether the sidewalks of Seattle will someday be paved in rubber. They are being tested only in the small stretch on the one street because it is still relatively new.

Santa Monica was the first city to install them in 1998.

At $8.70 a square foot, the rubber plates cost about $2 more a square foot to install than a regular concrete or asphalt sidewalk, Ellis acknowledged.

The test patch in South Park cost the city $8,000.

Over time, she said, the extra cost might be offset by the fact that cracked sidewalks won't have to be replaced as often.

Richard Valeriano, Santa Monica's senior street maintenance inspector, said it's still too early to know the long-term cost of the rubberized sidewalks. But, he said, the labor costs of replacing them runs about $1.50 square foot instead of the $8 to $12 it costs to break up and replace concrete. Santa Monica has installed them at about 50 sites, Valeriano said.

Dan Joyce, a principal at the Gardena, Calif.-based rubber sidewalk manufacturer Rubbersidewalks Inc., said 80 cities in eight states are trying rubberized sidewalks. Tacoma and Olympia are among them.

Butting up against concrete sidewalks can damage tree roots, and Seattle occasionally has to remove the trees, Ellis said. She came across the rubberized sidewalks after grappling with the same issue that inspired the company to develop the technology -- to get trees and sidewalks to coexist. "If you care about sustainability, you have to try to get the most life out of what you have," she said.

Each of the 57 rubber panels installed, she said, is made of five recycled tires. "That's a big mountain of tires that won't be going into a landfill," she said.

Joyce said the company's founder, Lindsay Smith, a screenwriter, got the idea when she was upset that Los Angeles County crews were going to rip out trees in her neighborhood and discovered that Santa Monica County was experimenting with rubberized sidewalks.

Sweet, the man who was walking down the street, had one worry. He slid his sneakered foot across the rubberized sidewalk and wondered if it would become as slick as a Wham-O Slip 'N Slide when it rains.

Valeriano, though, said Santa Monica tested the sidewalk with skateboarders, rollerbladers and women in high heels and found the rubber has more traction than concrete.

Said Debbie McNeil, who is active with the South Park Neighborhood Association, "We want to keep as many street trees here as possible. But we also want sidewalks that don't trip us."

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