Editor’s Corner: Snow thank you to more storms

Week after week New Jersey keeps getting pounded by snowstorm after snowstorm. Once you finish digging your car out of a few feet of snow or shoveling the sidewalk free of the accumulation from the night before, another storm comes barreling in to add to the mess. It seems like we can’t catch a break from the wild weather, and by looking at the massive piles of snow around campus, Rider’s had enough too.
For the past few weeks, I feel as if I’ve been woken up every day to the sounds of snow plows, salt trucks and shovels working hard outside my window. However, the constant shoveling and plowing hasn’t gotten rid of all the snow and ice on many pathways around campus.
Yes, workers have done so much for the campus by getting up early and trying to clear the roads around campus. However, the shoveling and snow removal isn’t equally done around campus. They’re so worried about clearing the main roads and sidewalks around campus that they forget about others. The farther you go toward the back of campus the more dangerous it gets.
The sidewalks around Cranberry’s as well as the ones on the other side of Centennial Lake are sheets of ice. Walking around over there is rather risky and can seem as if you’re ice-skating across campus. It’s obvious that workers are trying to take care of the problem — since there’s salt and sand all over the place — however, it’s not enough. The salt and sand isn’t helping when it’s sitting in globs on the sidewalk instead of distributed over the ice to make it easier to walk. Alternatively, workers should focus on breaking up the ice that is building up continuously on some walkways. By completely getting rid of the ice, we can assure that it’s safe to walk around and the risk of falling and getting hurt is lower.
Not only are the sidewalks a mess, but the parking lots aren’t too clean either. Many students are finding that their cars are snowed in to the spots because of the plows piling up the snow. Luckily, Public Safety is willing to work with students and lend them brushes and shovels to clean off their cars and get them out of their parking spaces.
Once cars are out of their spaces though, snow and ice is still left behind. Plows should be working to move that snow from empty spaces when cars aren’t in them to make it easier for students to park later. There’s already a lack of parking spaces because of the piles of snow around the parking lot. If they won’t melt, hopefully Rider can try to remove them.
Unfortunately for us, winter still isn’t close to being over and more snow is probably in our future. Maybe Rider can work on it’s removal tactics to make campus even safer for students.

-Danielle Gittleman
Opinion editor

Printed in the 2/19/14 edition