How do you get from $500 to $150k?
1) ADA. If there's no way a wheel chair is getting down that there is no way the City can have anything to do with it.
2) Liability. If someone slips and falls on a muddy hillside after climbing over a guard rail to get there, the City is probably OK. If someone slips and falls on stairs, the City may not be OK.
3) Permanence. Those stairs look like they will last maybe 10 years, probably less before, the stairs are loose from the stringers. Near the end of that life, see Step 2.
4) The Guard Rail. I presume it is there to serve some function and is probably to avoid a problem with Step 2, even if there was no muddy hillside, someone decided it was needed to prevent a Liability claim.
Near to me is a Convention Center and a nearby Hotel. Between them is a flood ditch with levee walls to keep any floodwater in it. It makes about a 6 foot rise from the general elevation on each side. Across the ditch and walls is a bridge with concrete stairs. Neither the Convention Center nor the Hotel claim it. As far as they are concerned it just appeared out of nowhere. It's concrete and about 30 feet long. Because it doesn't belong to either party in some clear way there is no ADA problem and no Liability problem. It's fairly permanent, so that's nice, and it doesn't circumvent any safety barrier. For the conventions I attend and which basically rent both facilities, the convention hires a driver to make the lengthy detour that is required to go between the buildings for those with mobility problems, who would otherwise have a quarter mile excursion that this bridge cuts to about 600 feet. If either party did claim it, they would be on the hook to provide local transport.
That 200 feet claim is garbage. He knows that's each way, so it's a 400 foot detour. I doubt the Mayor would like to park his car 200 feet from his house every day.