Covington hiring sidewalk assessment specialist in push to become region's most walkable city

Covington is hiring a sidewalk assessment specialist as part of an effort to preserve the walkability that draws many people to the city and to make its sidewalks accessible to everyone.

For many residents, that walkability is central to what makes Covington home.

"Part of the reason I live in Covington is because it's so walkable ... safety is the biggest part of it," Allison Fayfich told WCPO 9 News Tuesday.

WATCH: How the city of Covington is looking to address sidewalk conditions across the city

The city wants to make sure it doesn't lose that important piece of its appeal.

"The sidewalk coordinator position is meant to focus specifically on that and working with our residents and businesses to update sidewalks to identify situations where we need to proactively work on issues, and come up with a framework that essentially gets us to being the most walkable city in the region," Covington City Manager Sharmili Reddy said.

The ultimate goal is to catalog the condition of sidewalks across Covington and identify those in need of help.

Fayfich said the city has already made strides in recent years, even as construction continues.

"I mean, they did a lot of work within the past couple of years to really improve them, especially around Covington. So I think recently they've done really well," Fayfich said. "There's just construction everywhere right now. So once they clean that up, I think will be good."

City officials say a key priority is keeping Covington's sidewalks accessible to all residents.

"Even if you want to think about folks that are disabled and are in wheelchairs, we wanna make sure that our sidewalks are really accessible for all," Reddy said.

The initiative is also part of an ongoing effort to keep Covington beautiful.

"We like wider sidewalks, we like trees, we like certain assets on the public realm that make it feel more comfortable and makes us want to walk more within a community," Reddy said. "So we will be looking at all aspects of that, but we got to start with good sidewalks."