Cities or merchants sometimes want to remove vending boxes to de-clutter the sidewalk, but newspaper boxes are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and must be accommodated.
That from a Streetwiki piece on curb extensions.
- Will newspaper boxes continue to be “protected” long after most of them have gone out of business?
- Would such protection be necessary on private streets and sidewalks?
- How can I get in on this?
- I think my city just put in about 8 or 10 of those extensions on a small stretch of road near a “redevelopment” project … I happen to think they are silly, but if the empirics show they improve safety, and the cost is reasonable, then why not? Oh, maybe the cost is not so reasonable – $50,000 per extension in extra drainage costs. I am sure that our city used the lowest cost labor and materials (for the quality) that it could, you know, to make sure we taxpayers were getting the best bang for our buck.
