The city of Warrenton has banned parking on the entrance and exit ramps of the city’s western Interstate 70 interchange, with a vote that caused a rare divide among the Warrenton Board of Aldermen.

The board voted 4-2 on March 16 to ban parking at the interchange, intending to prevent tractor-trailers from parking there overnight. Parking was also banned on the street connecting the two roundabouts on the south side of the interchange.

There is already a pre-existing parking ban on the old I-70 interchange, city staff said.

Aldermen Bob Delaloye and Scott Schulze voted against the new parking ban, a rare split for a board that usually doesn’t pass new rules without full consensus. The proposed ban generated controversy because truck drivers who are at the heart of shipping and commerce on I-70 don’t have enough approved parking space in the region. 

As Delaloye pointed out during a previous discussion, local truck stops are full to capacity nearly every night, leaving few options for other drivers who are reaching their mandatory time limit for daily driving. Delaloye is a former truck driver.

“A lot of times, in the middle of the night you’re out of hours and there’s no place to park. ... There’s so many trucks out there now,” Delaloye said during a March 2 city board meeting.

However, other aldermen argued that trucks parked on the ramps create a traffic hazard that could endanger other drivers.

Warrenton Director of Operations Brandie Walters said the street between the two roundabouts was included in the ban because truck parking is causing issues for grounds maintenance.

“That way, when our guys are going out mowing and trying to maintain all that, they don’t have all these ruts and (trucks) are not tearing that all up,” Walters said.

Other bills

Aldermen also passed three other bills during their March 16 public meeting. Two had to do with private communication facilities, adjusting the city’s building code to match new state regulations for telecommunication towers and small wireless broadcasters.

“These changes were necessary to bring our codes into compliance with recent changes to state and federal law. They’re written to provide the city with as much oversight as allowed,” commented Planning and Development Director Tim Burks.

Aldermen also approved a boundary adjustment for a residential property at the south end of South Morgan Street. While the lot adjustment was nothing momentous, engineer Bart Korman said surveyors preserved the possibility for an undeveloped lot south of Morgan Street to one day be built with a new road connecting Morgan Street to Brune Parkway and Highway 47.