By 8 p.m. tonight, City snow crews were nearly finished plowing bus and school routes, and plowing had begun in about 30 percent of residential districts. Material spreaders continue to patrol arterial streets, re-plowing and applying material as needed, guarding against re-freezing and responding to emergency service requests. About 90 maintenance vehicles are now on the streets, and crews will continue working overnight, gradually focusing more on residential streets.

Two types of parking bans are now in effect for Lincoln:

• A residential parking ban went into effect at 6 p.m. Parking is now banned on the even-numbered sides of all City streets that are not arterials or bus routes. Even if your side of the street appears to be cleared, do not park there until the ban is officially terminated because crews sometimes need to make more than one pass.
• A snow emergency parking ban also remains in effect. That means parking is banned on both sides of the street on emergency snow routes,bus routes and other major arterial streets. A map showing these routes can be found on the City website.

A third type of parking ban will go into effect tomorrow night. A snow removal district parking ban will be in effect from 12:01 to 7 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday – February 4th through 6th – in the City’s eight snow removal districts. In these areas, snow is plowed into windrows, loaded into trucks and hauled out of the area overnight. To assist with snow removal, parking is prohibited on both sides of the streets in the districts. Those include streets in Downtown and the Haymarket; University Place; Havelock; Bethany; College View; 11th and “G”; 17th and Washington; and 25th and Sumner. Maps can be found at lincoln.ne.gov (keyword snow).

To assist downtown residents during snow removal district parking bans, free overnight parking is offered at Center Park Garage, 1100 “N” St. To reduce citations and towed vehicles downtown, the service will be offered from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. when the City is under a snow removal district parking ban. (For the Thursday ban, the service begins at 10 p.m. Wednesday.) Customers will be charged the posted rate for any time beyond those hours. Vehicles that remain in the garage past 10 a.m. will be charged for the entire time the vehicle was in the facility.

Please stay informed on the status of snow operations in Lincoln. Additional information is available on the City website at lincoln.ne.gov (keyword: snow). If you have questions, you may call the Public Works Snow Center at 402-441-7644.