City crews run into roadblock plowing downtown

The city says with this much snow, they simply don’t have enough room to plow it in the downtown area.

“Our downtown area is tight. When we get this amount of snow, we have a hard time taking care of it in terms of where can we place it,” said Jack Ladley, operations manager for the City Streets Division.

When the snow hit Colorado Springs, it hit one local shop even harder.

“It did take a toll on us. It was really bad. Usually this happens in snowstorms, people don’t go out to get coffee,” said Taylor Dodson, assistant manager at The Perk Downtown.

Dodson says even if customers wanted to get coffee, it was impossible because of the snow covered roads downtown.

“I’ve heard quite a few customers say they couldn’t get in. There was one guy who got stuck outside of our store this morning,” said Dodson.

The city says one of the few places they can put all the snow are in medians. They are unable to plow snow on the side roads because it would cover parking spaces and sidewalks.

“Because the businesses are so close to the street and the sidewalks, we can’t just pile it on the sidewalks. Nobody could get around town if we did that,” said Ladley.

Some downtown employees argue there needs to be an alternative.

“It seems like they didn’t really do that well of a job plowing all the roads. Even Jimmy John’s was almost closed yesterday,” said Daniel Eaton, Jimmy John’s employee.

The city says they’re aware of the concerns but are working with the space they have.

“There’s 40 people working to cover a city. These are the same roadways that their families and loved ones drive on. We want nothing more than to get down to bare pavement and make this as safe for everybody,” said Ladley.

The city plans on having a full call-out, that means all of their plows working Wednesday night into Thursday.