Downtown Businesses Aren’t Worried About the Sidewalks, They’re Worried About the Streets Downtown Businesses Worried About Plows, not Sidewalks

RUSSO: Here on Salina Street, Original Grain Operations Manager Mark Letizia (Le-TEA-zi-uh) isn’t worried about the sidewalks.
LETIZIA: By the time I get here around eight, eight-30, the sidewalk, from whatever storm we had the previous night is usually pretty cleared. If it’s not for whatever reason, it’s only because it’s still snowing pretty heavily.
RUSSO: Instead, Letizia says the main factor that has business is not the state of the walkways, but the state of the roadways.
LETIZIA: But that situation, when it’s hazardous to drive, that’ll affect business because the delivery piece. It’ll also affect people coming, just not as much as I thought. But it did affect our delivery, immensely.
RUSSO: He says it would help more if the city could find a way to better deal with illegaly parked cars, helping the plows clear the roads faster. From Downtown Syracuse, I’m Tom Russo, N-C-C News.

Syracuse, N.Y. (NCC News) – Throughout the past few weeks, all eyes have been on the new Sidewalk Snow Removal Pilot Program, but businesses downtown aren’t as concerned with the walkways as they are the roadways.

The new program, approved in January by the Syracuse Common Council, pays JSK Snow Services up to $170,000 to clear 40 miles of city sidewalks.  JSK will step in once at least three inches of snow has accumulated.

But for Mark Letizia, the operations manager for Original Grain, the sidewalks being clear are not nearly as much of a problem for business as the roads being clear.

“What I worry the most about is the streets,” he said.  “The sidewalk actually is really good. The streets are really bad.”

Original Grain is located on South Salina Street, at the corner of East Fayette Street.  This is one of the busiest intersections in the city, says Letizia, and the near constant presence of cars, often illegally parked, makes clearing the roads that much more difficult.

“I think it’s not anyone’s fault other than the fact the streets are covered with cars,” Letizia said.

According to Letizia, when the streets are not clear is when he loses the most business because he can’t handle delivery orders.

“There’s not enough drivers, they’ll say I’m not gonna work, so our business will go down there,” he says.

Letizia’s suggestion is for Syracuse to try and find a way to better combat the issue of parking and cars blocking the roads, to help the plows clear the streets more efficiently.

“I think there should be some sort of initiative to, somehow, someway, if there’s a way to get these people to move, so it could just be cleared, because it takes days after a big storm,” he says.  “If there’s a way to do that, that will help.”

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