This Week’s Question

While I understand this has been a heavy winter and our grounds team is working hard, the parking garages (especially Garage 1) often does not get cleared out and it is unsafe. The snow drifts inside the garage, in addition to the untreated ice is not only unsafe for staff who are walking in, but for patients being seen. I have personally slipped multiple times and have watched others slip as well. Is this something that is being looked at during the storms? It seems that it is often not being treated until days later, if at all. In addition to the unsafe walking conditions, cars are often going the wrong way down one-way areas and speeding past pedestrians who are walking in the building. Is this an area that our officers are monitoring or could be monitoring? Thank you for your attention to this safety matter.

Thank you for raising these concerns, which I’ve shared with our leaders in parking, grounds, and University Safety. Our grounds crew does remove snow drifts from garages; the volume of snow and prolonged below-freezing temperatures this winter presented extraordinary circumstances, causing this to take longer than normal.

As J.J. Odom, our building and grounds director, explains, the majority of our focus during and immediately after the storms was clearing the surface lots to ensure there was adequate space for parking. Additionally, the timing of the back-to-back storms created further challenges with keeping up with all areas simultaneously. It’s important to understand that the work continues long after last snowflake falls.

Our grounds crew takes a number of steps as a matter of routine to mitigate winter-related issues, and does an excellent job overcoming conditions to ensure parking areas are cleared, walkways are treated, potholes are patched, etc. It can be easy to take this for granted, and I’m glad for this question because it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the outstanding work this team does every day — even around the clock when needed. So I would like to take a moment to thank our grounds crew members for their outstanding efforts.

Regarding vehicle traffic in the garages, Chief Justin Gilbert reports his officers have been emphasizing enforcement of unsafe travel throughout campus and are paying attention to the garages as part of that.

Thank you again for your questions. 

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