Parts of downtown Columbia will be closed to traffic on Friday night for snow removal.
Columbia Public Works spokesperson Steve Sapp says individual blocks will temporarily close at 6 p.m. Friday and should reopen by 6 a.m. Saturday.
“There will only be about a one block area closed at any one time, Sapp says. “We will not have all the streets in downtown Columbia closed so it will be very limited in scope for closures at any single point.”
Snow is usually plowed to the sides of the roads to melt. But to keep sidewalks open for pedestrian traffic in the downtown area, snow was plowed initially to the middle of the streets. It will be moved overnight to a different place to melt.
This is expected to affect traffic in the downtown area, including Columbia Transit. Columbia Transit spokesperson Christa Holtzclaw says bus routes will shut down by 6 p.m. Friday since all Columbia busses must enter and leave through downtown’s Wabash Station.
“It’s just going to be a lot easier for everyone if we get off the roads at 6pm,” Holtzclaw says. “We are a public service and we’re trying really hard to get people where they need to go.” This comes after a day of off-peak bus schedules.
Busses arrived at stops every 80 minutes on Friday instead of every 40 minutes like they normally do. Regular bus schedules are expected to resume Saturday.
