As the Mayor Greg Nickels Pedestrian Master Plan nears its final draft, Broadview residents are concerned their pedestrian needs are being overlooked.

The plan, among other elements, determined which neighborhoods need sidewalks, improved drainage and which have priority over another.

Sidewalks from North 85th Street and continuing north to Broadview Avenue North are noticeably absent, and some residents are worried for the safety of children and seniors, said Gloria Butts, member of the Broadview Community Council.

Last year about six blocks of sidewalk was installed on the north side of Broadview-Thomson Elementary,13052 Greenwood Ave. N., on both sides of the street, but it doesn’t come close to how many more are needed, Butts said.

The recently released draft of the pedestrian plan states that its vision and goals were rooted from the Pedestrian Master Plan Advisory Group in April 2008 to make Seattle the most walkable city in the nation based on four goals: safety, equity, vibrancy and health.

“I think the thing about the Pedestrian Master Plan is it’s the first time we’ve looked citywide at walkability issues,” said Barbara Gray of the Seattle Department of Transportation. “The level of facilities citywide is not the same for every neighborhood. The discussion tends to be focused on sidewalks in the north end because there are a lot in the north who don’t have sidewalks.”

The city decided in 2008 that priority areas for the plan would be higher density pockets like business districts and urban villages where there is access to transit, rather than neighborhoods that were less dense, Gray explained.

This means, Broadview, a neighborhood made up of a number of single family residential streets, is not on the city's priority list for pedestrian upgrades.

“It’s not that they aren’t important, it just means you want to get places first where you have the most people walking and have safety challenges,” Gray said.

Butts said the plan does not address businesses generating pedestrian traffic in her neighborhood.

“We don’t have an old town like Ballard, but we do have three business nodes that have no continuous sidewalks, such as Greenwood, Third and Linden, which (causes) people to drive instead,” she said.

Gray said the north end creates the biggest challenges for the department and added that there are other neighborhoods in southeast and northwest Seattle also without sidewalks.

“We are trying to strike that balance," she said.

Census data is collected every 10 years and the information to compile the equity portion of the Pedestrian Master Plan Analysis of street improvements was used from 2000. New census data will be collected again in 2010.