Crosswalks not safe

By Dan Schreiber

There have been many words and dollars spent on making this campus more green in general, and more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians in particular. To accompany these laudable goals and use of resources, it is time to increase the education and enforcement of the proper use of facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians. One thing that particularly disappoints me are crosswalks that are completely ignored by the community of drivers. Every day I see people waiting to cross at a crosswalk, but unable to because no cars are stopping, or much worse, people in the middle of a crosswalk still being passed by cars that have had plenty of time to stop. It is true that it would be against the law for a pedestrian to jump out in a crosswalk when cars are approaching with no reasonable amount of space to stop, but this is not the case here. I challenge any individual, or better yet, any campus police officer to sit by either the crosswalk on Goodwin next to Loomis Lab, or the crosswalk on Springfield at Matthews, next to Uni High, and tell me whether you see pedestrians able to cross with authority.