More than 50 miles of sidewalks were completed across unincorporated Harris County, including three school districts in Precinct 4 throughout Katy, Cy-Fair and Alief ISDs.
Sidewalks 4 Precinct 4, a $20 million initiative launched last March by Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones, aimed to improve access to schools, health care providers, businesses, parks and transit stops in the area.
“For years, our students, our families walked in mud, in ditches, pushed their baby carriages in an unsafe way. We know that in 2023, Harris County had a record number of incidents with regard to pedestrians being hit by cars. This is unacceptable, and our families deserve better,” Briones said at the March 19 news conference.
The impact
Kerr High School junior Gabrielle Brown said she knows how walking back and forth to school every single day is not the safest after almost getting hit by a car when walking home.
“Many students are walking along roadsides, and they’re walking on uneven pathways,” Brown said. “Thanks to [Sidewalks 4 Precinct 4], we are able to walk on safe designated walkways so that we can get to and from school without having to encounter different things like cars or holes in the road or maybe even mud.”
Explained
To find which areas in Precinct 4 would see improvements, according to a news release, Precinct 4 officials developed a data-driven sidewalk gap analysis that identified vulnerable sidewalks across 406 square miles across the precinct.
Officials prioritized locations within 1 mile of schools, parks, bus stops and health care providers. Total sidewalks for the school districts include:
- 14.1 miles in Cy-Fair ISD
- 22.6 miles in Katy ISD
- 14.6 miles in Alief ISD
What residents should know
A full, detailed map of the completed sidewalk projects can be found here.
