Parking and traffic slowed by snowdrifts
Snowdrifts along 800 East, as a result of this winter’s snowplowing, have affected driving and parking conditions in front of the fraternity and sorority houses near Utah State University.
Captain James Geier of the Logan Police Department Administrative Division said the city and police department are aware of the safety issues the snowdrifts cause and clearing the available parking has begun now the clearing of Logan downtown parking is completed.
“They have to do something about it,” Michael Toll, president of the Sigma Nu fraternity, said in reference to the snowdrifts. “They can’t just put it on the side of road.”
Toll said there have not been any accidents this winter in the fraternity’s parking lot, but while he has been at USU, he has seen three accidents during the winter months, because of the snowdrifts blocking the drivers’ vision.
“You can’t even seen when you pull out of the parking lot,” Toll said. “It’s just unsafe.”
The snowdrifts also cover red painting on portions of the curb next to the Sigma Nu parking lot so students don’t know they are parked illegally, he said. These parked cars also make it difficult to see the traffic along 800 East while pulling out of the parking lot.
With the snowdrifts making the road thinner, it has made it more difficult for members of the Chi Omega sorority, to pull into the house’s two driveways, Chi Omega President Alexis Lear said.
“It affects us a little more than the fraternities,” Lear said, “because their houses are longer and they have more space for cars in their parking lots.”
The driveways in front of the house do not fit all of the cars for the members of the sorority and some of the cars have to park on the street, Lear said. She and other members of the sorority have helped push cars that have been stuck in the snowdrifts.
Geier said there has been some latitude allowed when issuing parking citations for vehicles parked near the lanes of traffic, due to the excessive size of the snowdrifts. He also said portions of 800 East in front of the fraternity and sorority houses are exempt from overnight parking citations during the winter to allow sufficient parking for residents who live along that portion of 800 East.
Paul Sampson, the assistant vice president of human resources at USU, said he has not been contacted about any complaints in regards to the Aggie Shuttle being delayed because of the cars being parked closer to the street than usual, or the bus drivers having difficulty maneuvering around the cars.
Sampson said he recommends contacting Logan city to see how the city plans to address the excessive amounts of snow that have accumulated along the street, and particularly issue of the drifts of snow blocking the vision of the driver, when pulling out of the fraternities’ and sororities’ driveways and parking lots.
-cmoffitt@cc.usu.edu