Would someone tell me just how can the FEDERAL government can DICTATE to a CITY what kind of sidewalks they can and cannot have?.......................
Federal tax dollars for road construction. No money unless you do what they say.
They tie federal funding for capital improvement street projects to it. You want some of your community’s money back from Washington? Play by their rules.
Then there’s the fines and lawsuits...
Most cities get a lot of funding from the feds, and every dollar of that funding comes with strings attached. If a city wants to defy a federal “suggestion”, it first must untangle itself from them financially. There was a supreme court decision a few years ago that said that if a state/county/city/municipality/whatever does not recieve federal funding, then they are not required to enforce federal codes, and can in fact tell the feds to butt out in cases where the codes differ.
(If I’m remembering that right, it’s been a few years.)