As University of Memphis students play Frogger trying to cross Central Avenue on their way to and from school everyday, cars zoom by at speeds uncharacteristic of a school zone.
While some students wait patiently for the light to change so they may cross safely, others simply look both ways before crossing this busy street which many Memphians use as a work commuter route to Downtown.
Ken Mulvany has been on both sides of this two-way street.
“I know how dangerous it can be to cross Central Avenue,” said Mulvany, landscape architect for The University. “But I also know how diligently you have to drive when students are crossing the street.”
Unlike other smaller streets around campus, Central Avenue remains the only street with a 40 mph speed limit.
Patterson, Walker and Zach Curlin all maintain speed limits of 25 mph, and Southern Avenue, which students cross to get to the parking lots, has a speed limit of 35 mph.
While excessive speeds and jaywalking are obvious concerns for pedestrian safety, Mulvany said a sight distance problem for both drivers and pedestrians, along with drainage concerns, compound to make the road dangerous.
“Given the alternatives, the crosswalks are the best possible alternative,” Mulvany said.
The University, along with the city, devised a plan after receiving recommendations from an outside consulting firm to build elevated crosswalks which will serve to connect the Central parking lot with campus buildings on the other side of the street. Central Avenue will be lowered so the crosswalks are not at a high angle to encourage use.
Initially, public reaction was skeptical until federal grants came through and softened the considerable cost of the project.
To those who feel that lowering the speed limit would offer a less expensive alternative, Mulvany said that is not the solution.
“Lowering the speed limit would cause a gridlock that would snowball from Park to Poplar,” Mulvany said.
A slower flow of traffic would make crossing more difficult because traffic would be very dense.
“An alternative like speed bumps would be ideal for Southern Avenue because it is a residential street, but Central is a heavily used road,” Mulvany said.
But drivers are not the only ones to blame; pedestrians take responsibility for putting themselves in danger by not crossing at designated crosswalks, according to Mulvany.
“From a legal standpoint, those students are jaywalking,” he said.
The problem on Central is a conglomeration of several factors, including high traffic volume and students crossing the street throughout the day, according to Derek Myers, deputy director of Public Safety at The U of M.
“The goal of the (new) crosswalks is to remove pedestrians from the mix altogether,” Myers said.
But Myers said he is not convinced the elevated-crosswalk plan alone will solve the problem.
On a typical day, many students can be seen avoiding the crosswalks altogether, opting instead to cross closer to the building to which they are heading, whether it be the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law or the Fogelman School of Business and Economics.
However, the new crosswalks, which will be elevated over a lowered Central Avenue, will give students crossing the street no alternative to using the crosswalks.
“We want to give students no choice but to use to the crosswalks,” Myers said.
Those working in the Office of Campus Planning and Development said they hope the problems with Central Avenue will soon be eliminated. The official dates for construction have not been set.
