Collin Lueck
Editor
The re-introduction of angled parking on East Main Street has created snow removal concerns for downtown businesses.
Business owner Sandy Gipple addressed the Merrill Board of Public Works Wednesday, stating that the plowing situation downtown is dangerous. With snow being plowed to the curbs, her customers are getting stuck – or canceling their appointments when the snow is too deep.
Gipple has owned a salon on East Main Street for 21 years. When downtown had parallel parking on both sides of East Main, the solution was for the street department to plow the snow to the middle of the street and pick it up when they had time. This alleviated the snow banks at the curbs, Gipple noted.
With the snow pushed to the curbs, cars on both sides of the street have to park farther out toward the middle of the street. Angled parking on the north side causes the street to become narrower during times of significant snow.
“It actually turns into one lane because the cars are so far out,” Gipple said.
City Street Superintendent Dustin Bonack said it’s time consuming to pick up the snow on Main Street, and it’s not feasible to do it right away during a snow event. And, the angled parking makes the street too narrow to plow to the center, he indicated.
“The only viable option to eliminate snowbanks is to plow to the center, but we would have to go back to parallel parking,” Bonack said.
Board of Public Works chairman Pete Lokemoen said snow removal is an obvious problem with angled parking on Main Street.
“We knew this right up front,” he said. “I don’t see being able to change anything this year.”
“This is exactly what we knew would happen,” added board member Ryan Schwartzman.
East Main Street featured angled parking many years ago. The angled parking returned to downtown in the summer of 2015 as a way to increase parking spaces for businesses.