BATON ROUGE - A broken sidewalk along Plank Road north of the Baton Rouge Metro Airport has been repaired following a 2 On Your Side report in May. 

Brian Ford contacted Brittany Weiss about the broken sidewalk near his self-service car wash business. He shared his frustration after his work orders were repeatedly closed without any action being taken. There had been confusion over which agency would take responsibility for making repairs.

"That was the biggest problem, everybody was pointing the finger, blaming each other," said Ford.

The broken sidewalk at Plank Road and Clark Street was surrounded by an orange plastic fence and had trees growing from it. It had been left that way for several years. Ford used to maintain the unwanted shrubbery but figured he was only delaying progress.

"I'm tired of cutting that; that's not my responsibility," he said.

Google images from 2016 show a brand new sidewalk. As time continued, the sidewalk started to fail, and an orange barricade went up. The barricade stayed in place for several years. All the while, Ford is making calls to get the responsible party to make repairs. 

"Nobody wanted to take responsibility," said Ford. 

In this case, Ford says his work orders were repeatedly canceled. A supervisor would take a look at the sidewalk and determine that there was nothing to repair.  He didn't stop calling. Ford just called 2 On Your Side instead.

"Thanks to you and calling you they finally did something about it," he said.

The day after the first 2 On Your Side story aired, DOTD visited the spot, and soon after, repairs started. DOTD said it dug out the area, placed fill around its drainage system, then backfilled with dirt. Last week, the city's Department of Maintenance replaced the sidewalk. 

Ford's motivation for getting the sidewalk repaired was the pedestrians in the area. Often, he'd witness people in wheelchairs or pushing strollers forced to walk on Plank Road to avoid the large hole and orange fencing. People are happy to have the sidewalk repaired.

"I've seen several of them walk across, roll across, actually stop and look at it; it feels good, it really does," said Ford.

The sidewalk repairs were completed last week.