Northern Kentucky is preparing for another round of snowfall, and while crews are working hard to clear the roads, sidewalks are receiving less attention.
Newport resident Kurt Parks walks to work. He lives in the Monmouth Row Apartment Complex and uses the Taylor-Southgate Bridge and Purple People Bridge to get to his job in downtown Cincinnati.
Parks said he is not super bothered by the sidewalk conditions themselves, but when he has to cross the street, he has to be careful where he steps over the mounds of snow on the curbs. He said that with the streetlights sped up in front of Newport on the Levee (due to the Big Mac Bridge being out of use), he also has less time than usual to cross the street.
“Crossing the street onto the sidewalk means deliberately stepping on the footsteps that have been stepped on in the past so I’m walking on packed and solid snow,” Parks said. “Of course, there’s the pile of snow in the median of 3rd Street in front of the levee that I slipped trying to walk over while crossing the street.”
He said the bridges themselves are terrible.
“None of it’s cleared,” Parks said. “The Purple People Bridge has a narrow path of packed snow that I can rely on, and that’s it. Taylor Southgate might also have a narrow path now as well, but it didn’t on Monday evening when I walked home from work.”
Sunday into Monday, the NKY region received around 10.5 inches of snow, a record for the area, which is still reeling from the storm. According to reports from the National Weather Service, 2 to 4 more inches of snow accumulation are predicted for Friday, starting around 2 p.m. and continuing until around midnight.
While public works departments are responsible for snow removal on city streets, who is responsible for clearing the sidewalks?
In Newport, City Manager John Hayden said it is up to the business owner and homeowner to clear the sidewalk in front of their property, which he said is common among cities. Hayden said the city doesn’t have the staffing to clear all city sidewalks, especially in addition to city streets.
“We took some steps in the business district so the businesses can safely open,” Hayden said. “We removed a lot of snow from the street, we took several dumpsters of snow we removed off the street so that cars could get in and off Monmouth Street. We did clear some sidewalks in the business district as well. Just practically speaking, there’s no way we can accommodate that for residents because we just don’t have the manpower.”
The Cincinnati area (recorded at CVG) received a record 4.2 inches of snow on Monday, breaking the old single-day snow accumulation record of 3.5 inches set in 1981, according to the National Weather Service. Hayden said that the significant amount of snow required substantial staff time.
“Over the weekend, they worked 12-hour shifts around the clock,” he said. “We couldn’t even get to the main roads quick enough. We would do the hospital routes and the hills, and as soon as we would get done with those, they would be covered again.”
Still, sidewalks remain coated in snow, and people rely on them to walk to work, local businesses and the grocery store.
Newport resident Nita Lauver said she walks to work from 11th Street to Dollar General on Monmouth Street, using the underpass on Monmouth to get there.
“I was lucky to walk in the street yesterday (Jan. 8) morning to work because there was barely any traffic at 7 a.m.,” Lauver said. “If a car is too close or passes, I try to get back up on the sidewalk. I try to leave early because you never know with walking how early or late you can be.”
Hayden said the underpass is tricky because the city’s equipment is too big. He said public works crews attempted to clear the area with a gator (a utility vehicle equipped with a snow plow), but because of the amount of snow, that didn’t work. Other discussions on possibly buying new equipment for that area have been in the works; however, Hayden said it might not be worth the expense due to the Monmouth Street Corridor Project.
The corridor project, which has had multiple setbacks and was expected to be well underway by now, is expected to widen the underpass, meaning the city’s current equipment would work for that area.
“Today, now we expect more (snow), so where they were clearing the snow yesterday, they can’t do that today because they got to be back on the street pretreating and getting ready for that,” Hayden said.
If there is a significant safety issue due to the snow, Hayden said residents should contact the city.
“When this is over with, we’ll get together with the public works crew to talk about what happened, what we can improve on, and I think there’s always room for improvement,” Hayden said. “I think overall, they did a really good job.”
