Rubber sidewalks go where concrete fears to tread

New Rochelle, N.Y., which installed a 400-square-foot tract of rubberized sidewalks two years ago, paid $20 per square foot of Rubbersidewalks pavers imported from California, compared with $8 for traditional, local concrete.

In April, the District of Columbia installed about 4,000 square feet of rubber sidewalk, at a cost of $60,000. The investment, however, may have saved 35 half-century-old trees, which John Deatrick, the district's chief engineer, values at about $40,000 to $50,000 each.

"The advantage is that you can effectively drape the rubber sidewalk over the tree roots. When you do concrete, in order to get a smooth walking area, you tend to trim the roots," says Mr. Deatrick.

"Finding some way to preserve our investment in trees, if you want to look at it in dollars and cents, is the driving financial factor here," he says. "Unfortunately, we've killed a lot of trees doing sidewalk work over the years."

Also in the dollars-and-cents category: The district spent $7 million to repair concrete sidewalks in 2005. Beyond that, it is fighting three trip-and-fall lawsuits related to sidewalks.

Rubbersidewalks plans to open a new factory in Lockport, N.Y., in the fall, a move it hopes will cut costs to customers in the eastern half of the country. Still, the cross-continental cost of transporting the tiles amounts to only about $1.50 per square foot, Smith estimates.

"I haven't determined if it's cost-effective," says Jeffrey Coleman, New Rochelle's commissioner for public works. The city installed a stretch of rubberized walkway to preserve one of its older and more scenic tree-lined streets. "We wouldn't put this in our downtown. In a downtown area, if you have to take a tree down, it's not the end of the world."

So far, Mr. Coleman is impressed that the material hasn't cracked after two New York winters. "It's flexible, pliable. That's one of the nice features," he says. "I figured they would have been beat up by a snow shovel or something."

So, what's it like to tread on a rubber sidewalk? No bounce, it turns out, but the walkway on Summit Manor Road in New Rochelle definitely has more give than your run-of-the-mill sidewalk, especially where tree roots have shifted the ground beneath the rubber. It's akin, perhaps, to the surface beneath a state-of-the-art playground.

As for the street's linden trees, they've turned the concrete walks into something resembling a snowless mogul run. The Rubbersidewalks pavers, however, lie serenely, appearing almost smug in their rubberness.

"They're wonderful. We're the envy of the neighborhood," says Anne Gargan, who lives in front of the city's small experiment. She and her husband plan to petition the city for rubber's expansion. "They're pleasant to walk on. They rise and fall with the trees."

Page: 1 | 2