Winter parking laws changed
On clear nights, cars are now allowed to be parked on the streets of Logan, as long as it isn’t snowing or within 48 hours after a snowstorm.
In the past cars weren’t allowed to be parked on the street between 1 and 5 a.m. from Nov. 15 to the last day of February. The Logan City Council passed this change on Dec. 18, 2007. Before changing the ordinance, the city looked at other cities and what they did, Roper said. They then patterned their ordinance after one such city.
The challenge to this is deciding when the accumulation ends and thus begins the 48-hour part of the ordinance, said Russ Roper, Logan City Police Chief.
“My initial impression is more people aren’t going to move their cars,” said Mark Nielsen, public works director for Logan City.
Yet once enforcing of the new policy happens, Nielsen said he believes that could easily change. He said he expects the enforcing to start within the next few days. They have not been enforcing the new policy in order to allow residents the chance to learn about the change.
It became hard for officers to give tickets for parking violations on clear skies, Nielsen said, and this was the main reason the ordinance was changed. This is an attempt to make it easier for everyone, Nielsen said. An ordinance that will now be enforced is the no parking on the park strip, the area between the road and the sidewalk, Roper said. The old ordinance made it harder to enforce this because people had to move their cars each night, Roper said. As such it was rarely enforced, even though it has always been illegal. Roper said the mayor felt obligated to provide another option for parking cars, and the new rules allow parking on the street, while enforcing the parking strip rules.
The city hopes allowing cars to park on the street will alleviate some of the parking problems, if it ever stops snowing for 48 hours.
-alison.baugh@aggiemail.usu.edu