City officials are
crowd-sourcing a major wintertime dilemma: Removing snow and ice from miles of
public sidewalks.
Through the Clear the Way
Winter Challenge, which was announced in late January, Logan is accepting
proposals and seeking creative solutions from individuals, school classes and
other community groups. The challenge ends on Thursday.
“Unfortunately the city
hasn’t had a strong history in taking strict steps in clearing sidewalks, but
that’s changing,” said neighborhood improvement manager Jim Geier, who is
helping promote the initiative. “We just wanted to do a community outreach for
ideas beyond what we’d considered. We figured it wouldn’t do us any harm to
hear what other ideas might be because it is a particular problem for us.”
Public works director Mark
Nielsen said if citizens and community groups aren’t able come up with a way to
consistently keep sidewalks free of ice, the city’s focus will be to
aggressively enforce the code by issuing citations and fines.
Nielsen is concerned that
unsafe sidewalks pose a hazard to pedestrians, especially the disabled and
elderly.
“There have been some
injuries, but I’d say most of it is people complaining of not being able to
walk along sidewalks,” Nielsen said. “There are a lot of people that like to
walk, even in the winter, and they’re just frustrated when half a block doesn’t
move the snow.”
Logan municipal code
requires homeowners and renters to keep sidewalks adjacent to their property in
good repair and suitable for travel. Businesses with property abutting on a
paved sidewalk are required to clear those thoroughfares within an hour after
snow ceases falling, or by 9 a.m. the following morning if a storm occurs
overnight.
Geier is responsible for
notifying owners of offenses and issuing citations. He said warnings are given,
but repeat offenders can accrue fines of $50 to $1,000 a day.
Geier said the most common
properties with snow-clearing issues are rentals.
“They need to work out some
kind of agreement with the landlord on who is going to clear the walks,” Geier
said. “It’s a complex issue. If you go to a fourplex, who do you lay the notice
on when there are multiple tenants?”
Geier said the city can play
a big role in supplementing community snow removal efforts.
“I’m really looking at the
city to take more effort to clear some public right of way as well,” Geier
said. “That’s not to say the city is going to take on responsibility of
clearing those walks because we rely on citizens to do that, but there may be
some efforts on clearing arterials and corners. That’s what I’m proposing. It
can become difficult for people on corner lots to clear their walks because
snowplows continue to put it back. You get landlocked.”
In addition to the Clear the
Way Challenge, Geier plans to use utility bill inserts, public service
announcements and community education to improve snow removal efforts.
“We need to do better at
improving our walkways,” Geier said. “If we expect people to abandon their cars
and take public transportation or walk or bike then we need to keep our travel
lanes clear.”
Residents can submit ideas
in person at Logan City Hall or to James Olson at james.olson@loganutah.org.
Grady Smith, Jessica
Hinrichs, Seth Merrill and Teresa Gutierrez contributed to this article.
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