More than a year after it was first accepted, a proposal to add pedestrian bridges over Central Avenue still has its detractors.
The plan, which gained steam following the death of a U of M graduate student last April, calls for two pedestrian walkways across Central between Patterson and DeLoach. The project would likely include lowering Central by as much as 8-9 feet and the installment of a fence lining the Central parking lot to funnel foot traffic toward the bridges.
The plan will also accommodate drainage improvements around the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.
Since the current design was unveiled, residents in the neighborhoods surrounding The University have expressed concerns. Even in the past two weeks, two unidentified U of M students were canvassing the neighborhood with a petition to stop the project from moving forward.
King Hussey, a concerned neighborhood resident and U of M alum, signed the petition and said the main concern of the students was the cost of the project.
"They were concerned with the amount that they, the school and the taxpayers would have to pay," Hussey said.
Currently, the project estimate is $3,334,500 with The U of M contributing 51 percent of the cost ($1,695,500). The city has earmarked funds to pay for the rest.
It's a cost that neighborhood resident Joan Kling believes is excessive.
"We shouldn't need to spent even any money on something like this, when it could be spent somewhere else." Kling said. "That's a luxurious thing to corral your old children and get them across the street.
"By the time they get to college, you should hope they could cross the street."
Tony Poteet, assistant vice president, Campus Planning and Design, said that funding is already in place and that, "I haven't seen any funding come from the neighbors for a solution for the safety of our students."
Currently the project is slowly traversing through the design stage. The design of the drainage portion of the project is being explored further to ensure that flooding will not be a problem.
City of Memphis Engineer Wain Gaskins estimates the problems will be resolved in five to six weeks and that the bidding process will quickly follow. He said he believes ground will be broken in nine to 12 months. Poteet also marked next summer as the most likely construction period.
"We're still working diligently on this," Gaskins said. "It's not uncommon to have a few surprises pop up during the design process. We have to address them as we come across them."
The delay has left neighborhood residents with more time to express their discontent.
"I don't want to do any more to urbanize the neighborhood," Hussey said.
"There are lots of alternatives, as far as I can see."
Hussey mentioned he sees speed bumps made of cobblestone or a tree lined median as less expensive and more appealing alternatives to protect people from the high volume of traffic on Central Avenue.
Gaskins said the city wouldn't approve of speed bumps on a main thoroughfare because of the volume of traffic.
Jim Hellums, assistant vice president, Physical Plant, said the original plan called for a median to give students a place to wait for cars to pass, but that never materialized.
"The city wasn't real keen on that," Hellums said.
According to Gaskins, these alternatives for the bridges wouldn't eliminate the threat that spurred the project to begin with -- pedestrian-vehicular collisions.
About a dozen injuries and two fatalities have taken place in the past decade.
"The fact is, we've got about a 2,000-car parking lot across from a major arterial (street)," Gaskins said.
"If we are truly going to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, we have to have some mechanism to segregate pedestrians from vehicular traffic."
"We need to focus those pedestrians into two key crossing points...this obviously creates a much safer situation."
Gaskins said the reason for lowering Central Avenue is to make the crossings easier to use. The street is already depressed relative to the parking lot and the main campus. Lowering the road further would allow the bridges to be built without steps.
This would provide easy access for students with physical disabilities, and would minimize the effort to cross safely.
Even if other alternatives were considered, each would have to be friendly to vehicular traffic. The city -- and many residents -- would frown upon a plan that might divert traffic and further clog Poplar, Highland and other busy streets in the area. "The neighbors have been very vocal in voicing their opinion that the flow of traffic on Central should not be disrupted as in their opinion it would add more traffic to Poplar," Poteet said via email.
While the debate rages, the construction date continues to be pushed back. The project was initially scheduled to start this summer, but the drainage portion of the project is still being explored.
Once that issue is resolved, Poteet doesn't want to see the project delayed any longer.
"I sincerely hope (there is no delay)," Poteet said."We need this for the safety of the students."
In the meantime, residents like Kling are hoping to take advantage of the delay and come up with a better alternative that could satisfy everyone. When presented the petition by a U of M student, she signed it.
"I'll tell you this, he had a lot of names on the petition," Kling said. "There are a lot of people against it. I was sort of relieved, because I'd already told The University of Memphis, 'If we're going to have to do this, then we just have to do it.'"
But when I saw all those names, I thought, 'Someone must have an idea, so why give in yet?'"
