Green Valley residents advocate for new sidewalk in 2025 budget

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A group of residents in Hoover’s Green Valley community on Tuesday night encouraged the Hoover City Council to include money in the city’s 2025 budget for construction of a sidewalk in their community.

The group is asking for a sidewalk to be built on Thornton Place to connect to an existing sidewalk on Thornton Drive, which leads to Green Valley Elementary School.

Gina Wilcox, one of the residents, said the sidewalk is needed in part to enable children in the community to safely walk to and from school. “We live within two miles of the school, so we don’t have bus access,” Wilcox said.

This particular stretch of road, which she said is about one-tenth of a mile, involves an S curve on a hill.

“It’s a blind S curve, and when you are going up or down it, even if you’re driving the speed limit, you just can’t see,” she said. “Driving it in the morning, you’re completely blind [because of the rising sun]. The way the hill is shaped, you can’t walk safely on either side. … In the afternoon, you’ll see children walking down that hill alone, walking home, and it’s just not safe.”

With some of the older people in the neighborhood moving out and younger families with children moving in, there’s a greater need for the sidewalk now, Wilcox said.

The sidewalk also would provide people in general safe pedestrian access to Sertoma Park and the tennis courts there, she said. She said she was speaking on behalf of about 20 families (with more than 30 children) who have been pushing for a sidewalk for about 18 months.

John Adams, another resident, said he almost hit Wilcox on that stretch of road with his vehicle one day when the sun was shining in his face.

“Currently there is a significant gap of pedestrian infrastructure on this route,” Adams said. “My children and other children must walk in the street, which exposes them to unnecessary risk, especially during the morning and afternoon traffic when drivers may be less attentive.”

Having a sidewalk there also would encourage more families to get outside and walk, reduce traffic congestion around the school and promote a healthier lifestyle, Adams said.

“The sidewalk would also enhance the connectivity in our neighborhood, making it more accessible and pedestrian friendly,” he said.

But not everyone is in favor of it.

Dacia Radford, who has lived on Thornton Place for 22 years, said a sidewalk would take up a significant portion of her yard and require her to lose a well-established crepe myrtle and disrupt her sprinkler system. She's also concerned building a sidewalk might exacerbate flooding problems in the neighborhood, noting it would go through an area with an underground spring.

“A sidewalk is good if it doesn’t affect you,” Radford said. “People who want a sidewalk aren’t sacrificing anything. … If they wanted to live in a place that had a sidewalk, they should have moved into one. Move to a neighborhood with a sidewalk.”

The city already has done some preliminary analysis of the area and estimates that a sidewalk in that location would cost $232,750. It’s a project for which the city’s Engineering Department is seeking funding in the 2025 budget, but it is classified as a “want” and not a “need.”

The Hoover City Council held its first 2025 budget hearing Friday morning, including the requests from the Engineering Department. A second budget hearing to hear from other departments is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 4, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The council plans to hold a special meeting on Monday, Sept. 9, to hear a budget proposal from Mayor Frank Brocato and approve a budget by the end of this month, Council President John Lyda said.

In other business Tuesday night, the Hoover City Council:

  • Approved spending $113,802 more for new sidewalk installation on Sulphur Springs Road and Al Seier Road, using money left over from other completed sidewalk projects and money that had been allocated for a median project on Valleydale Road. The total cost of the sidewalks on Sulphur Springs and Al Seier will be $414,536, engineer Justin Marlin said last month.
  • Agreed to pay $58,080 more to Bama Utility Contractors to complete sewer pump station improvements in the Applecross area of Inverness, bumping the total price for the job to $1,620,021.
  • Agreed to pay $48,000 to buy a long-range acoustic device for the Hoover Police Department, using money the city receives for housing federal inmates.
  • Accepted $5,000 from state Rep. Leigh Hulsey’s discretionary fund and $2,500 from state Rep. David Faulkner’s discretionary fund for use by the Hoover Police Department.
  • Approved an agreement to hire Schoel Engineering for an estimated $92,600 to manage the city’s floodplain management program and implement a flood mitigation grant program for the city. This would include Schoel providing an engineer to work in-house with city staff one day a week throughout the year.
  • Voted to make the next city council president’s term a two-year term, to be reviewed mid-way through the next four-year term of office.
  • Agreed to rehire Knox Pest Control to provide pest control services for various city properties over the next fiscal year.
  • Agreed to rehire Johnson Controls to provide maintenance on heating, ventilation and air conditioning units at municipal buildings throughout the city.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9:11 a.m. on Sept. 4 to add a neighbor's concern about sidewalk construction exacerbating flooding problems in the neighborhood.