University Looks for Stadium Road Hill Solution and Crosswalks
Bailey Brendel ® Staff Writer |
Photo by Kjerstin Hall ® Staff Photographer |
Over the past few years, Minnesota State University, Mankato has been looking into numerous ways to help build traffic safety measures on campus. Recently they have put out more emergency phones, otherwise known as the blue safety poles, to help students feel safer when walking around campus and to help with any issues they may have.
However, the university wants to provide more for its students.
“I know right now, specifically with traffic safety, we’re working on a couple things. One issue is at the top of the Stadium Road hill. As you come up the hill, we’re trying to get a light in the arrow so that you can yield,” says MNSU Student Government President Andrew Trenne.
“A few other things we’re working on specifically for traffic safety and in terms of the school are crosswalks. You know around our campus there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic, but there’s not a lot of crosswalks in places where people might not think there needs to be,” Trenne adds.
Getting to and from Lots 1 and 2 from campus is a concern for many students.
According to freshman Kendra Dowe, “I park in Lots 1 and 2, and not only is it a long cold walk across campus each day, but crossing the road is honestly scary. You never know how fast cars will come flying up so crossing the road is a bit scary. There are also shuttles that are supposed to take you to and from the parking lot, but I rarely see them so walking across campus late at night and with these cold temperatures makes it very scary.”
In addition, freshman Amber Lovely comments, “I live in Julia Sears, so it is a shorter distance than most, but in the winter the walk is horrible. It is so terrible to walk there, and the shuttles are never there when you need them.”
Another example of poor traffic safety would be on the road between the Stadium Heights apartments and the Summit Apartments. Stadium Heights resident Hailey Bacon says, “The fact that there is no crosswalk between these two apartments is ridiculous, I find myself playing Frogger just to get across the street.”
Currently, MNSU’s Student Government is pushing for the university’s support to help get these projects started by giving their support to the City of Mankato Representatives.
“We currently do not have improvement projects in our queue for this area,” Mankato City Manager Susan Arntz says. “We work with our partners at the county and university to make any operational changes to the intersections over time.”