By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

(July 31, 2025) Town of Berlin officials say they are working toward placing sidewalks along Old Ocean City Boulevard to enhance pedestrian safety and walkability.

Residents from the neighborhoods near the road flocked to the Berlin mayor and council’s meeting on Monday to implore the town to make real progress towards establishing walkways along the busy, and oftentimes dangerous, street.

Residents said many drivers speeding down Old Ocean City Boulevard are distracted and careless, and encouraged town officials to work towards creating pedestrian paths before someone is injured.

“There are a lot of distracted drivers on that road,” said Matthew Stoehr, the chair the Berlin Planning Commission. “You go down that side of that road, it is full of beer bottles and mini liquor bottles. It is not a great road. We are getting to a place where someone will get hit and we will be reacting to it, instead of trying to get ahead of it.”

Vanessa Stein, the mother of two young children, told the mayor and council when she’s on a run, she takes her earbuds out until she reaches Main Street to ensure she can hear when a car is near.

She added that when she takes her kids to get ice cream, she is constantly worried about the unpredictable vehicles on Old Ocean City Boulevard, exacerbated by a lack of pedestrian safety. Stein said she teaches her children they always have to be alert and cannot trust drivers to do what they’re supposed to do.

Dirk Widdowson, another planning commission member, presented facts from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the importance of sidewalks. Widdowson’s wife, Gayle, submitted a petition of about 50 signatures from affected citizens in the area.

According to Widdowson, “studies show that streets without sidewalks are more than twice as likely to have driver-pedestrian crashes compared to streets with sidewalks” and that “providing walkways separated from travel lanes can prevent up to 88% of walking along the roadway crashes.”

“Well-designed sidewalks can incorporate a buffer zone between the sidewalk and roadway, further enhancing pedestrian comfort and safety,” Widdowson said.

“A well-maintained and connected network of sidewalks encourages walking, which offers a safe, accessible means of transportation, especially for older adults who are maybe more dependent on walking options. Sidewalks allow application of the central pedestrian safety skills such as stopping, looking left to right for traffic, and being aware of surroundings.”

The mayor and council assured the audience that sidewalks along Old Ocean City Boulevard have been and are a priority of the town. However, while the project is on the radar of the State Highway Administration, it has yet to see any real progress.

“For five or six years now, we’ve been waiting for the state to pay for [the sidewalks],” Stoehr said, addressing the council. “I’m asking you guys to start looking at how Berlin can pony up and help us be safe.”

The project remains stalled, Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall said, because of uncertainty concerning the easements along Old Ocean City Boulevard that would be required to install sidewalks.

“The hard part is that the state is on board with wanting to do the project,” the mayor said. “The challenge here is the easements. There are no easements along Old Ocean City Boulevard to place the sidewalk. The first step is to secure those easements…Where we need to go is getting those easements from the folks that live on the south side of Old Ocean City Boulevard.”

Rather than continuing to take the “wait and see” approach, Councilman Steve Green asked the council to come to consensus on funding an engineering study of the stretch of road, similar to what the town did in 2011 when Broad Street sidewalks were waiting on funding.

Green thought the petition, the packed house at town hall and an engineering study may help with presenting the case to move forward to the state. The council agreed and Tyndall said, “it would be another tool” for the town.

Green said he supported using impact fees to fund the study as well as the entire stretch of sidewalks as needed. Finance Director Natalie Saleh said the impact fee account has nearly $1 million in it currently.

Part of the engineering process will involve conducting surveys to identify the number of easements in place and determine how many the town needs for the sidewalk project to proceed. Jamey Latchum, the town’s director of water resources, said that the firm Davis, Bowen, and Friedel has surveyors who can take on the initial task.

“DBF has a survey team,” Latchum said. “They can do the survey part of it first before we do the engineering, because if we don’t do the survey, the engineers are going to be confused. We can conduct a survey first to determine what the town or state owns. …it could be something real quick. The survey cost should be under $10,000. The survey will determine everything. It will tell us where we have to start with our easements.”

Tyndall added that the town will also send letters to property owners along the proposed routes, informing them that surveying of easements will occur to get the sidewalk initiative underway.

Furthermore, the council and residents agreed that it would be beneficial for the town to use impact fee funding for the initial stages of the project, like the survey or an engineering study, to inform the state that steps are being taken, thereby encouraging the State Highway Administration to provide the remaining project funding.

“I would hope that there is impact fee funding for at least the engineering study, so at least we can move forward in some sort of direction,” Green said.