Over the last week a crew has been sporadically working on the sidewalk panels surrounding most of the utility poles on the south side if Sligo Avenue. It is great to see this work in its final stages, but the methods used in completing the work is all wrong - and creates dangerous situations for pedestrians.
According to State law, access and safety of pedestrians must be considered during ALL phases of construction. The crew working on these sidewalks seems painfully unaware of the law.
The crew that is working here is about five guys. They are excavating by hand, and mixing concrete in buckets. They seem to be able to excavate four pabels in a day, and fill three of them with concrete - leaving the last panel for the following day. There are two problems with this plan - The first "following day" was five days later, and the hole and blocked sidewalks made passage dangerous for the entire time period.
Now, they have excavated another hole and left if for some undisclosed future day. They left this dangerous situation overnight last night, and have not returned to complete the work today.
Unlike most of the other panels, this section is very close to the travel lane, where speeds can be up to 40 MPH. Pedestrians must stpe into the road to get by here. This is a busy and confusing intersection with lots of sight-line obstructions. Very Dangerous!
Pepco should only hire contractors who are fully trained on special ROW situations like this one. MCDOT needs to be certain that Pepco hires contractors who know what they are doing, and who can complete a job without endangering the public.
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