City staff recently sent the council a briefing document that says less than 60 percent of Dallas sidewalks are in satisfactory condition, according to Dave Levinthal with the DMN. More bad news: The 2006 bond program, which includes a bunch of money for sidewalk improvements, will only impact 60 linear miles of sidewalks, even though 1,831 linear miles of city sidewalks are considered "unsatisfactory", according to the briefing. (Click here to download TEC_SidewalkImprProgr_092208.pdf and read the briefing for yourself.) The city’s solution, other than to just keep plugging away, is to push a new program that guarantees a new sidewalk to everyone who wants one — the only catch is that you have to pay for all, or at least half, of the repairs yourself. (Click here to download PWT_sidewalk_replacement_program.pdf and read about that program.) We talked about this a few weeks ago, and a reader commented that paying for your own sidewalk makes sense if the sidewalk is on your property — it’s already your responsibility anyway. Unfortunately, given the various economic issues tugging on our pocketbooks these days, how many people are going to put paying for a new sidewalk at the top of their holiday wish list?