Early this year, in an effort to mitigate traffic and increase pedestrian safety on Dan Allen Drive, the University installed an access gate to close the road to through traffic from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day.
While some drivers are clearly still having trouble getting their minds around the concept—cars waiting fruitlessly at the gate before turning awkwardly around is still a common sight—the gates seem to have accomplished the University’s stated goals at least somewhat. Pedestrians seem to be having an easier and safer time crossing the road, traffic flow from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. daily has disappeared except for buses and University vehicles, and they seem to help the Wolfline buses that travel down Dan Allen Drive stay on schedule as they negotiated their appointed rounds on campus.
There’s still room for improvement, though. Fortunately, it would cost the University almost nothing-—the cost of two stop signs, in fact—to “take it to the next level.”
Drivers looking to turn from Cates Avenue onto Dan Allen during peak travel times—i.e., when many University employees and students leave campus each day at 5 p.m., just as the Dan Allen gates swing open for the night—are forced to rely on the Dan Allen drivers to have enough courtesy—or enough pity—to wave them through. Absent that courtesy or pity, the drivers attempting to turn from Cates onto Dan Allen Drive might find themselves waiting there indefinitely.
This problem would disappear overnight if Cates Avenue and Dan Allen Drive were made into a three-way stop-. In addition to bringing much-needed order to traffic flow at that intersection, adding stop signs would also make crossing Dan Allen Drive more pedestrian friendly by further slowing down its traffic.
We don’t know what two stop signs and two metal posts would cost, but we’re certain they’d be less than the $50,000 the University spent on the gate. With no cost issue involved, we can’t think of any reason why the University couldn’t move forward with it tomorrow—or why they didn’t do it many years ago, for that matter.
