Hazel Dell leader calls for Highway 99 sidewalk improvements

Sherwood — Sidewalks are badly needed along the northern stretch of Northeast Highway 99, said Vicki Fitzsimmons, a leader of both the Sherwood Neighborhood Association and the Hazel Dell-Salmon Creek Business Association. Fitzsimmons said she wishes a July 29 Columbian story about deteriorating and missing sidewalks in the city of Vancouver had mentioned Highway 99, too. Lower-income people who live in apartments and manufactured homes north of 99th Street must walk in the busy street whenever they go shopping, she pointed out. She provided a county Public Works newsletter, dated May 2006, that suggests sidewalk construction could be done by 2012. It never happened. “The county cannot just continue to put this off,” said Fitzsimmons. “People who have no choice but to walk need sidewalks.”