Columbia considers solutions to help 5000 daily pedestrians who cross a busy road through campus

KOMU is covering a controversial plan in Columbia to stop 5000 students daily from illegally crossing a four lane state highway.  College Avenue cuts the MU campus in half and also acts as a barrier between residential areas where some thousands of students live and campus.Students illegally crossing the four lane state highway has been an issue for years. Now, the university and the city want to put a stop to the problem:

The main idea is to build a concrete barrier topped with a chain link fence down the middle of College Avenue between Rollins Street and University Avenue.

However, this plan has East Campus residents and students angered and worried about the barrier taking away from the beauty of campus.

John Stansfield, an MU professor living in the East Campus neighborhood, said he thinks the whole idea is dumb.

"It'll give that side of the university sort of a concentration camp vibe," Stansfield said.

The Downtown Leadership Council held a meeting at the end of September to discuss other potential ideas.

An MU study from 2009 showed that 7000 students cross the road each day.  Of those, 2000 use the crosswalks provided and the other 5000 cross between the crosswalks.

That section of College Avenue carries about 19,000 motor vehicles each day. College Avenue has crosswalks at the busy and complex intersections it has with other major roads.  In addition, it has an elevated pedestrian crossing just south of the area proposed for the fence that is used by many thousands of students each day.

The area proposed for the pedestrian barrier and tall fence, between Rollins Street and University Avenue, is about 1/4 mile in length.

One fact not noted in the article:  Because of the complex nature of major highway intersections, where traffic typically traffic coming from six different directions legally crosses the crosswalk at different points in the traffic signal phase, pedestrians often feel far safer crossing the road mid block.  Especially for a road like College Avenue, which has a center buffer area where pedestrians can take refuge, the pedestrian only has to deal with one direction of traffic at a time when crossing mid-block--vs three directions at a time when crossing legally at an intersection crosswalk.

UPDATE: Steven Sapp of the City of Columbia wrote MoBikeFed with this response to the KOMU News article and our original headline for this article, which referenced the 'chain link fence' proposal mentioned by KOMU News:

No design work has begun at this point. Meetings with the East Campus Neighborhood Association, and an Open House have been conducted to gather input from a resident, student, motorist, cyclist, and pedestrian point of view. Feedback will continue to be accepted via an electronic comment form available at www.MakeTheCaseProject.com for the next two weeks. This feedback will help guide the design process.

As part of the design, aesthetics play a key role. The City of Columbia, the University of Missouri, nor MoDOT wish to have an "ugly" looking pedestrian safety enhancement project. 

Sapp indicated that at this time no design proposals are on the table, and certainly not a 'chain link fence' option.  He invites anyone with an interest in the project to visit the project web site and leave comments now and as design concepts and ideas are rolled out.

What do you think? what is the best solution to this problem, which pits the needs of 19,000 motorist crossing through a college campus daily against 7000 pedestrians who move across the road to reach campus destinations?

Creating a world-class pedestrian system that is connected and safe for all road users is one of the top goals of MoBikeFed's Vision for Bicycling and Walking in Missouri.  Your membership and generous financial support helps make that Vision a reality.