West Oak Lane residents, business owners dealing with no parking spaces due to plowing

PHILADELPHIA - If you drive along Ogontz Avenue in West Oak Lane you see it looks like a parking obstacle course. Cars double-parked, cars parked diagonally with the front sticking partially out in traffic and mounds of snow everywhere. 

"It's so hard to get in and out because of the way they plowed the street," said Scott. She’s the director of Little Miss Muffins Learning Academy near Ogontz and 72nd Street.

Employees of businesses here are now parking on the sidewalk because of the snow and Scott’s customers forced to double park to drop off and pick up their children. 

"Parking is really not good because the parents can't even park or run in anymore," she said.

One side of this stretch of Ogontz is businesses while the other side mostly residential. Scott agrees the city did a good job of clearing snow from the streets but it's clearly created another problem for people who work and live here.

"Some people dig themselves out of the parking spot and still the snowplow comes past and blocks in the parking spot and you can't get back in once you come home from work in the evenings," said Scott.  

A block up just outside Razor Cuts, "Scotty the Barber" says his customers are struggling to get in, too. 

"They have to park like two or three blocks away just to get here," he said. Scotty feels the city should clear spots like his. 

"The city should take care of that because it's commercial," he said. And no surprise to find chairs and cones marking spots residents shoveled themselves. 

"If they dig their own hole and they move, they put something in there and somebody moves it then it's a conflict," said Scotty. Overall, people are grateful the city made the road passable. 

"We thank God that they did plow the street. So right now what more can they do though? Because where are they going to put the snow for real, for real? So they did make a way where as though we can go up and down the street," said Scotty. 

The City Streets Department tells FOX 29 plow operators push snow off the travel lanes to make it safe and passable as quickly as possible and unfortunately, snow can be pushed into parking lanes. A spokesperson says the city is unable to clear the mounds of snow in parking lanes. 

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