NORWAY – The practice of plowing snow to the middle of Main Street is up for discussion again, and anyone with a better idea is welcome to talk to selectmen.

The unusual decades-old method allows people to park in front of businesses that line the major downtown thoroughfare. If the snow were banked to each side, those parking spaces would be inaccessible until crews could remove it.

“We’re doing what works best,” said Selectman Irene Millett, who said she is willing, as are other board members, to have local business people come to a meeting to see if anyone has a better idea.

The practice of making a center banking has been done for at least 50 years in Norway, but it is not unique.

In Weed, Calif., a community of about 3,000 residents in the Cascade mountain range in the north, Highway Supervisor Craig Sharp says there is no other way.

“This way business owners can get to their business,” said Sharp of the 10 to 15 businesses located downtown on what he described as a rather narrow street. Despite lack of a lot of foot traffic, Sharp said it is important to get the business access.

“The street’s so narrow you can’t allow parking” if snow is plowed to the outside, he said.

The length of the area plowed is about three blocks long and because of that no access cuts are made such as they are on Main Street in Norway. Cars simply go up one side of Main Street do a U-turn and come back down the other side, Sharp said.

The idea of plowing to the center, Sharp said, has been so successful that there is a call by town officials to expand the procedure.

“They do want me to do it in other parts of town but I won’t,” he said. Thawing and freezing makes the venture somewhat hazardous if the piles of snow aren’t immediately removed at night, he said. With only three plows and seven men employed to take care of 23 miles of road in Weed, the method works, Sharp said.

“There’s been no complaints,” he said of the practice that has been ongoing for at least the 26 years he’s been with the Highway Department.

Sharp said it is not a common practice, but nearby Mount Shasta, with a population of 6,000 also plows to the center of its Main Street.

Aspen, Colo., which uses round-the-clock personnel in shifts, four motor graders, two front-end loaders, two sand trucks and up to 20 contracted trucks to clear roads, also finds the method to be the best.

In the downtown core and on Main Street the snow is plowed to the middle of the street whenever there is three or more inches of snow, according to its snowplowing regulations.

In Norway, businesses are simply used to the idea and have even used it to their advantage. At Woodman’s Sporting Goods, Paul Brook can sometimes be seen after a storm sticking a pair of snowshoes in the high snowbanks to advertise a sale at his store.

“It’s a necessary evil. There doesn’t appear to be any other alternative,” said Chris Shorey of Main Street Furniture. Several years ago, the company used to stick a metal sign in the snow at a crossing it maintained for the convenience of shoppers who parked on the other side of the snowbank, Shorey said.

Selectmen have agreed that if there is a better way they are open to discussing it.