Yesterday morning we got a flier at home from the City of Durham “informing” us of the upcoming bond issue. I was sipping coffee in the den when I heard a scream from the kitchen. It was my wife: “What? A million dollars a mile for sidewalks. That can’t be right.”

My wife is usually not attuned to the costs of infrastructure, but in this case she had some experience. We had just replaced eight feet of sidewalk in our front yard. We installed, all by our little lonesomes, an 8-foot by 4-foot stretch that is 4 inches thick and on two inches of gravel. I’ve walked all over Trinity Park and I’ve seen none of the city-installed sidewalks that look better, and it cost us $300, which comes out to about $37 a foot.

Now, that doesn’t include any labor, but it does include rental of a 2-bag concrete mixer, purchase of 22 80-pound bags of concrete mix and some edging tools. That’s why I don’t put much store in the City of Raleigh’s contention that they replace sidewalks for $50 per mile, which would have to include labor costs. Even considering that they buy in bulk and didn’t have to buy tools, that doesn’t sound like an accurate figure.

Durham, on the other hand, says it costs them $170 per foot. That’s more than $130 per foot more than my actual costs, which one would have to conclude, goes to labor, or waste or corruption. But even that doesn’t add up to $1 million per mile. The actual figure, doing the math ($170 x 5,280 feet) is $897,600.

I also have another gauge. The reason my wife and I decided to do our own sidewalk was the estimate we got from one of the major paving companies in the Triangle. They wanted $1,100, but the kicker was that they guaranteed they would screw up my lawn with equipment and wouldn’t be responsible for it. That’s $137 per foot, which is pretty outrageous but still $33 less per foot than Durham says it costs them to replace sidewalk.

After I saw that figure on the flier I recalled the scene on Watts Street several weeks ago of many workers in orange vests standing on their shovels and brooms while one person was smoothing concrete. Durham is awash in waste or worse. I would guess that the real cost is somewhere between Raleigh’s $50 figure and Durham’s $170, but less than the commercial paving company’s $137.

Let’s say it’s $100 per foot and be generous. At that price the cost of sidewalks is $528,000 per mile, about half of Durham’s estimate of costs, but still double the $264,000 per mile that Raleigh claims. The $100 per foot figure cuts costs almost by half in Durham but still leaving some graft, kickback and corruption wiggle room. That’s only fair.

So the choice is: Approve the street and sidewalk bond and encourage the lax and irresponsible behavior that has become a Durham tradition, or engage in a little tough love on the part of the beleaguered taxpayers.