Courtney Balcombe

Creativity Editor

clb6264@psu.edu

It’s winter, we all know that Erie is probably one of the worst places when it comes to snow, but this year has been the worst.

Let’s start with my neighborhood first. When they plow the street all the snow from the road piles up in front of the mailboxes, the foot of driveways, and because it all piles up, pulling in and out of driveways is more difficult because you can barely see other cars.

Following that, the plows for the driveways come through once every five or more hours, so maybe they come through at 5 a.m. after the street gets plowed. However, we still have to dig our cars out of their parking spots because the plows just pile that snow at the top of the driveway where the trash cans sit, as well as behind all the cars.

Here’s where the plows create a new problem. Snow is piled up to the mailboxes so the mailman, as I watched him do on January 28, just continues driving past everyone’s mailbox. He does not stop to drop off anyone’s mail. We haven’t received mail since maybe January 14. Two weeks have passed without receiving mail. When you call the post office to ask about your mail, you get transferred to a 1-800 number so you can’t even ask the post office near your house to pick it up. Instead, you file a claim for your mail and have to wait two to three business days to know where your mail is.

The issue is that it is tax season! I would like my W-2s on time, if not early because filing sooner is just nicer and less stressful to me. I’m still waiting on my W-2 to come in the mail. Now I get we have until April to file and all but filing in February 2021 I didn’t get my refund until June while my mom got hers the next week, sad because we file at the same time.

Here’s what doesn’t make sense, the mailman can get out of his car and walk up to the mailboxes to deposit our mail. There are eight mailboxes after every other driveway because of the apartment-style layout of my neighborhood. Ours is not like some other neighborhoods where the mailman would have to walk door to door, up steps, and across the street to deliver mail.

Now, moving on to driving throughout Erie. While plows do a decent job getting the main roads and sometimes the highway, they seem to neglect a decent portion of side roads and neighborhoods. Even when driving on okay roads, plowed but still snowy or icy, the people behind you really want to test their brakes. I play it safe when driving on those kinds of roads because my car is not made for this kind of weather and I don’t want to spend about $400 on snow tires.

I tend to drive between five and 10 mph under the speed limit in case the person in front of me struggles to stop or they slide. I do this so there is enough room for me to have the time to brake without hitting them. But what about the person behind me, well if they can’t brake because of the bad roads, they might hit my car. I understand that some people can afford the snow tires and some people without snow tires can drive easily on snow, but not my little car and I’m not willing to have a bad accident in this weather.

However, thanks to icy roads at the beginning of 2022, my car slid into the back of the car in front of me, and honestly, he was the most laid-back guy I’ve met. I got lucky that neither of our cars had damage to them, but there may be other accidents caused by icy roads that do not end up as well as mine did.

Campus roads and parking lots are no better. We pay $280 to park on campus, but it’s just like my neighborhood. The parking lots are barely plowed and the snow is piled up so high that it’s hard to see if there is oncoming traffic on Jordan Road. Most of the parking lots are so covered that you cannot see the lines between spots, which leads to people taking up two spots in the Erie Lot. Erie Lot is not the only commuter lot on campus that faces issues with plowing. The commuter lot at the science building near Nick is relatively small, but it’s not plowed nicely, so whichever commuter lot you chose, you end up in the snow one way or another.

We’re told that our parking fees pay for plowing and repairs, however, the residents on campus had to move their cars so the resident-only lots could be plowed. Well, I’ve been up to Trippe Hall and the lots do not look like a plow ever even came through. They made the residents of those halls move their cars, but those lots look worse than the commuter lots.

It’s not just the parking lots. Some of the walkways, even though they are steep, are barely plowed to the point that you slide just a bit when walking. Most of it turns to slush eventually, but that can still be slippery. There are some patches of ice on those pathways too, and if only half of the sideway is cleared, no one really moves over to let you walk on the sidewalk instead of through the snow.

I know snow is definitely unpredictable in Erie, but can we at least get plows that come through more than once or twice a day? It might seem like a big ask, but for a school that tells us our fees are going to these parking lots being plowed, it definitely makes me feel like the parking pass is just a waste of money if the lots I’m using are barely being plowed.