As Ashley Baudouin, mass communication sophomore, walked to her accounting class Thursday morning, a red Yamaha motorcycle swerved past her on the sidewalk and jumped the curb into the parking lot next to Lockett Hall. “I swear he could have hit me,” she said. Baudouin’s encounter is part of a bigger issue on campus. Thousands of students use the pedestrian crosswalks on campus every day to get to class, parking lots and the Union. Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director Gary Graham said it is difficult to gauge how many vehicles do not yield to the pedestrians on the crosswalks. He said the same goes for how many pedestrians cross the streets without using the crosswalks. “I haven’t seen this happen a lot, but then you get into the relative discussion of if it happens once, it’s happened too many times,” he said. Ginger Martinez, College of Arts and Sciences administrative coordinator, said many students don’t pay attention to the crosswalks. “I find that students, especially ones with cellphones or iPods, step out between two SUVs, and cars don’t see them,” she said. Gerren Sias, political science senior, said the problem is not only the pedestrian’s fault. “People don’t yield,” he said. Sias said the University should have crossing guards positioned at the busiest crosswalks near the Union and the stadium. Graham said the campus has more than 60 crosswalks which are repainted every year. He said the University plans to replace the painted crosswalks with a brick-style crosswalk, like the one near the roundabout on Field House Drive.
—–Contact Angelle Barbazon at [email protected]