Accessibility for pedestrians in Mexico got a boost earlier this month.

The city council at its regular July 10 meeting approved a bid by Flowmaster Construction of Mexico to construct a new sidewalk along Teal Lake Road that will provide access to the commercial district on South Clark. The bid also includes new curbs and gutters along Singleton Street near the Middle School.

The winning bid by Flowmaster beat the next bid by more than $14,000 and it came in more than $20,000 below what engineers had estimated for the two projects. Flowmaster’s bid was $57,856.50. About $19,400 for the curb and gutter project will come out of the street maintenance budget while $38,450 for the sidewalk project will come out of the sidewalk accessibility budget item.

City Public Works Director Drew Williford told the council at the meeting the sidewalk along Teal Lake Road won’t extend all the way to Clark Street but it will get pedestrians close enough where they can safely access the strip mall and movie theater. 

“We’re finally getting back to a place where our residents have a network that connects them,” Williford said. “It doesn’t extend all the way to South Clark Street but it does get them to a point where they have public right-of-way access along that route.”

Williford said it will also connect to another link of sidewalks with the hopes of more links in the future.

“It also completes a network that gets you all the way up to Lakeview Park,” Williford said. “Hopefully, we can move that forward in the future, increasing even further.”

South Singleton is a dead-end street off Francis Street near Fairgrounds Park and the Middle School. That project will completely reconstruct the curbs and gutters on the street.