Frigid winter weather froze the remnants of the Feb. 16 snowfall, much to the chagrin of students walking to class Monday.
'We continue to work on them, clearing them, and today our folks were out opening up intersections and areas where the snow had been really trampled down,' said John Harrod of the UW-Madison Physical Plant, which is responsible for campus snow control.
But some said messy walkways prevailed on campus.
'It has taken four days for them to start shoveling the rest of the sidewalks,' UW-Madison sophomore Ashley Watkins said. 'I wasn't very pleased, because part of University Avenue was just encrusted with icy snow residue.'
Harrod said his crew of 25 to 30 normally works weekends, but they received a day off after last week's big snowfall.
'They've been working pretty much round the clock for the last part of last week and we knew that it was so cold over the weekend it was going to be almost impossible to peel some of the snow up,' Harrod said.
He said workers were using Bobcats and skid loaders to scrape ice and snow from the walks today, focusing on 'priority' areas such as walkways around the UW Hospital.
B.A. Scheuer, interim director of the UW-Madison McBurney Center, which serves students with disabilities, said icy streets might have challenged some with limited mobility Monday.
'Certainly when the streets are still icy and the curb cuts aren't cleaned out, that does make it difficult,' Scheuer said.
UW-Madison senior Pete Valeo, who is in a wheelchair, said much of the snow was not removed from in front of Ingraham Hall Monday, where he had class.
'It was kind of weird because normally they're pretty good about having it all cleared off, so it was highly irregular,' Valeo said. 'I have a big power wheelchair and it can get around fairly nicely, so if I hadn't had that it could have been somewhat of a pickle.'
Scheuer said the University offers a Central Answering and Response Service to disabled students so they can call a number and request that their route to class be cleared first after a snowfall.
'I think the campus tries to do the best they can, and certainly they try to put the tools in place, things like CARS that students can call when they're having difficulty getting around,' Scheuer said.
But Watkins said she thought the snow removal could have been handled more efficiently.
'I know that it's a tough job to do, but I feel that there could be a little more preparation for major snowstorms,' she said. 'I was pretty bitter walking down the street wondering if my bottom was going to hit the ground.'
