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City of Homer unveils new sidewalk on Ben Walters Lane

Homer City Council members Shelly Erickson, Caroline Venuti and Rachel Lord cutting a ribbon held by Mayor Ken Castner and Lori Pond on Ben Walters Lane in Homer, Alaska on Sept. 30, 2024.
Jamie Diep
/
KBBI
Homer City Council members Shelly Erickson, Caroline Venuti and Rachel Lord cutting a ribbon held by Mayor Ken Castner and Lori Pond on Ben Walters Lane in Homer, Alaska on Sept. 30, 2024.

The City of Homer unveiled a new sidewalk on Sept. 30. It’s one of several projects they’re working on to improve infrastructure and transportation safety.

City employees and residents cheered at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new sidewalk on Ben Walters Lane on a recent Monday afternoon.

The roughly $1.5 million project went to design and pave the sidewalk for about half of the street that connects East End Road to Lake Street.

Homer City Council member — and Homer’s newly elected mayor — Rachel Lord said the project was years in the making.

“The Ben Walters sidewalk is near and dear to my heart,” she said, “it was something that I proposed to put in the capital budget a couple years ago. And it's an expensive project, but it was one that was critically important for the safety along Ben Walters Lane.”

The project was completely funded by the city with funds specifically earmarked for road maintenance and improvements

Mayor Ken Castner said the funds have been used to build other sidewalks around the city, including one on Main Street.

He said these projects show the progress the city’s made in improving infrastructure.

“These are little snapshots of the, of the town growing up, and so it's like some sort of a little party that we have as every time we reach some additional maturity,” Castner said.

But, Lord said in a speech at the ceremony that the city’s not done with improvements.

“There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, not only in sidewalks and bike lanes and sharing the road, but also in traffic calming, and that's something that we're continuing to work on,” she said.

The council will meet on Oct. 14 to discuss traffic safety during a work session before its regular meeting.

Jamie Diep is a reporter/host for KBBI from Portland, Oregon. They joined KBBI right after getting a degree in music and Anthropology from the University of Oregon. They’ve built a strong passion for public radio through their work with OPB in Portland and the Here I Stand Project in Taipei, Taiwan.Jamie covers everything related to Homer and the Kenai Peninsula, and they’re particularly interested in education and environmental reporting. You can reach them at jamie@kbbi.org to send story ideas.