SEATTLE -- The city's pedestrian-friendly image has hit a rough road.

A typical Seattle street might have old sidewalks chipped with dips and cracks or worse, no sidewalks at all.

There is a billion-dollar stumbling block in the way of building safer sidewalks in the city. But pedestrian groups say the city needs to start spending the money now.

Advocacy groups and city council member Nick Licata are calling for the city to focus on what they say is a long-neglected group, the walkers. Those who walk everyday feel big city money ends up on big projects, not pedestrian issues like sidewalks.

"Because sometimes we look at things like that, and we don't look at things people deal with every day," said pedestrian Megan Johnson.

"This is by far one of the worst situations I've seen in awhile," said Lisa Quinn with Feet First, an advocacy group building walkable communities.

Buckled sidewalks, cracked concrete or the absence of sidewalks have drawn fire from critics who say the mayor's push to put more people on sidewalks might actually put them in danger.

Mayor Greg Nickels launched the "Give your car the summer off" campaign, urging citizens to seek alternate transportation methods, most favorably walking.

Critics say the city's backlog of work orders and its lack of funding makes walking rather difficult in some parts of the city.

"To get to the bus, you have to take the sidewalk. And if there's no sidewalk there, you're putting you life in your hands," Licata said.

Licata wants the city to spend millions to improve sidewalks, but says the price tag could be as high as $4 billion.

Seattle's Department of Transportation says Licata's numbers are off. The department says the web of city sidewalks stretches 2,131 miles long. Streets without sidewalks run 952 miles. The price to add the sidewalks, according to the department's calculations, is about $1 billion.

According to the mayor's office, Nickels has tripled the money the city spends on sidewalks since he has been in office. This year's budget for sidewalk repairs is about $3.5 million.

Advocates say at that pace, it will take hundreds of years to fill in all the city sidewalks.

"It's to a point where it's in desperate need of repair, and it's going to cost us more to repair it," Quinn said.