Parking Ban in Gardner MA Through 7am on Friday April 5th
Mayor Michael Nicholson issued this statement “After discussion with the Department of Public Works and Police Department, the City has issued an on street parking ban beginning at 11pm this evening (Wednesday, April 3, 2024) and expiring at 7am on Friday, April 5, 2024. Snow is supposed to start around midnight this evening and is expected to continue straight through tomorrow into Friday morning, based on the information we are receiving from the National Weather Service. The length of this storm, coupled with the current staffing levels of the DPW, have lead to us to call a full day parking ban tomorrow to ensure there is adequate time to clear the roads with the weather at hand and the amount of equipment we have on the roads to remove that snow.”
Mayor Nicholson “If the weather clears up earlier tomorrow, we will evaluate the possibility of ending the ban earlier, as we have done in the past.”
Mayor Nicholson explains further: “The City currently stands by with 30 pieces of equipment ready to be deployed for both salting and plowing purposes. This includes both DPW staff members and contractors. During the warmer weeks we had last month, the City ordered enough salt to re-fill the current salt shed to keep enough on hand in the event of a late storm (like we are seeing now) and to give us a head start in the winter. As such, we currently have 1,200 tons of salt on hand ready to go. This amount usually lasts us 4 to 5 days of consistent precipitation.”
“Due to the current reading of the parking ban ordinance, an additional ban will be called tomorrow, specifically for the City owned parking lots. Under the former parking ban system, the City owned parking lots had a ban from 7am to 9 am, after parking was allowed back on the streets. However, when the ordinance was amended in 2015 to allow for a ban to be called as needed with hours depending on the length of the storm, this was not changed with it. As such, we could have a situation in which an on-street parking ban goes all day (as we have tomorrow) coupled with a parking lot parking ban that runs from 7am to 9am during the same time, leaving no place for people to park. To alleviate this issue until the ordinance is changed, a parking lot parking ban will be called on Friday, April 5 from 7am to 9am and will be issued via CodeRED tomorrow. This was not put out this evening in order to avoid confusion incase people thought this was taking place tomorrow and not Friday.”