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Hearing set on plan for sidewalk By JIM DAVIS An east Medford neighborhood will get a chance to speak out about a sidewalk proposed along a busy city street. The Medford City Council agreed Thursday night to hold a public hearing to consider a sidewalk and bike lanes proposed along a 1,550-foot stretch of Hillcrest Road. The hearing was tentatively scheduled for Aug. 5. "We really need to address the question of `why' for this project," said Danny Clay, who lives along Hillcrest and who opposes the project. He was the spokesman for more than a dozen neighbors who came to the Medford City Council meeting on Thursday night. Four people spoke in favor of a sidewalk. Campbell Patterson and Arielle Berman, two 8-year-old girls who were brought by Arielle's father, asked the City Council to install the sidewalk and called the current conditions "scary." "We can't walk to each other's houses, because there's no sidewalk," Campbell said. The proposed project calls for placing a sidewalk on the north side of Hillcrest and placing bike lanes along both sides of the street. The sidewalk would go into the city's right of way. Engineers have said they want to make a continuous section of sidewalk from downtown to North Phoenix Road. Other sections of the link still need to be completed. The project has been estimated to cost $122,700. The city is getting more than $97,000 of that from a state grant that became available this month. At the meeting, Clay said that neighbors feel they have "one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city." Putting a 7-foot sidewalk into that neighborhood would devastate decades-old fences, trees and landscape. If the sidewalk and bike lanes go through, Clay said it could affect the very nature of his neighborhood. He said traffic was busier on his street than at the Siskiyou Summit. Without on-street parking as a barrier, the street could attract even more traffic. "We're talking about the place we live. We like the way it looks," Clay said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA