LAST YEAR, every time I crossed the street from Jefferson Park Ave. towards Old Cabell Hall, I felt I was engaging in a dangerous gamble. The crossing that I used last year was marked but difficult to see by oncoming cars, and students are unable to see cars driving down towards University Ave; while there is a crosswalk nearby that follows a stoplight, many times students want to hurry and take the relatively more convenient yet all the more dangerous path. Unfortunately, my worries were realized last week when a passing car hit a University student trying to cross the three-lane highway Monday morning.
While the student didn't look both ways before she crossed the street and did try to run through traffic without staying on the designated path, this accident must nevertheless make the University reconsider the placement and safety of its current pedestrian walkways. Fortunately, the University isn't complacent: The University's General Safety Committee addresses traffic safety concerns, assessing pathways and crossings across the University. For instance, the committee decided later in the year to remove the crosswalk on JPA near Cabell after finding it to be too dangerous.General Safety Committee chairman Mark Fletcher mentioned in an interview that the committee is working on improving crosswalk visibility, primarily around Emmet St., through signs and walkway visibility. But the University and the General Safety Committee must reassess crosswalk safety across the University in light of this and other preventable tragedies. More specifically, the committee must improve crosswalks on JPA and Stadium Rd. by increasing visibility and requiring more consistent crosswalk guidelines.
Despite oversight by the University and its committees, the area located near Grounds has multiple crosswalks that are insufficiently marked, as well as crosswalks placed in perilous locations that give insufficient warnings both for drivers and for students. For instance, one crossing between Stadium Rd. and Whitehead Rd. is located on a hill, making it nearly impossible for students to tell if there are oncoming cars.Additionally, the crossing between South Emmet St. and McCormick Rd. requires pedestrians to judge the direction of incoming traffic, and despite the pedestrian markings, the crossing is still difficult for students to judge the intent of incoming cars. In general, many of the crossings on JPA and its extensions are located in areas with different elevation and blind turns.
Fletcher asserted that he and others on the General Safety Committee go on safety tours to address potential issues around Grounds, assessing whether certain areas are reasonably safe on and near Grounds. He added that when the committee assesses crosswalks, they don't go through general guidelines but instead respond to feedback from students and faculty on certain issues pertaining to the specific area, such as sufficient lighting and visibility around the crossing. A general guideline would improve the ability for the General Safety Committee to maintain consistency for crosswalks around Grounds.
For instance, a guideline requiring that all crosswalks near the University have posted pedestrian crossing signs at a certain distance or speed bumps near all crossings would greatly improve the safety at busy student intersections, as well as improve safety for future crossings. Additionally, general guidelines could change the requirements for all local crosswalks if the General Safety Committee feels that more than one crosswalk at a time should be changed, as opposed to assessing each crosswalk individually.
Assessing crosswalks themselves, however, isn't the only job of pedestrian safety for the committee. Fletcher said that the committee also encourages students to pay more attention to the road and less to electronic devices such as iPods or cell phones and works on creating safety awareness. Nonetheless, there are other ways the committee can encourage students to use the crosswalk directly and pay more attention to the road instead of jaywalking or concentrating on other distractions. For example, the committee could put a few feet of railings on sidewalks near designated pedestrian crossings to encourage students to cross the street where cars are expecting them instead of jaywalking near the crosswalk. Additionally, since students would pay more attention to where they would be able to cross, they therefore would be more likely to pay more attention to the road as well.
It's impossible to reduce all the dangers involved with pedestrian crossings around the University entirely. Many times students will pick convenience over safety, such as crossing Emmet St. when there is a pedestrian bridge nearby or using an unmarked crosswalk despite the location of a crosswalk with a stoplight a couple hundred feet away. However, by adopting general guidelines and evaluating current crosswalks, the General Safety Committee can ensure that students can be both on time and be safe. Besides, once crosswalk safety is properly addressed, we can worry about other issues, such as which song to play on our iPods.
Adam Silverberg's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at asilverberg@cavalierdaily.com.
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