I haven’t had time to get any sidewalk stamps recently so I’m going to do my usual stopgap post checking municipal ordinances for rules about sidewalk markings. I thought I would check out the municipality outside metro Lansing that I have done the most stamps from, because family lives there: Albion.

Although there are some stamped sidewalks in Albion, they are very infrequent. Accordingly, I predicted that I would find nothing in the city code about marking new sidewalk construction. I was right. The Albion code on sidewalk construction is mostly the usual stuff about how far it needs to be set back from the street, how thick the slab should be, who pays for repairs (as usual, the adjacent property owner), and so on. I did note a couple of unique elements. One is that it specifies the PSI that the sidewalk has to be capable of withstanding: “All concrete used in sidewalk construction shall, 28 days after placement, be capable of resisting a pressure of 3,500 pounds per square inch without failure.” The other is that there is a whole section devoted to doors and gratings in the sidewalk: “No door shall be placed in any sidewalk unless the design and specifications therefor shall be approved by the director of public works. No open iron grating or other open devices or any device containing glass shall be placed in or used as the surface of any sidewalk.” Albion is hardly a city I would expect to be riddled with sidewalk grates, yet the penalties for violating this suggest it was a big problem at one time: you get 30 days to remove the door, grate, or window after being notified of the violation, after which it is a separate violation for each day it remains.