As the end of the school year approaches, Gary Graham, director for the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation, said Easy Streets has been an overall success.
Easy Streets and the gates were implemented at the beginning of this school year to make the campus more pedestrian friendly, he said.  
“The main goal was to enhance safety by getting the traffic that didn’t belong on campus out of there,” he said. “To the extent of that goal, it has been extremely successful.”
Graham said the gates did pose some minor issues for faculty and staff. He said they still have some issues because they are waiving their access cards instead of keeping it in one place. Graham said the office will have to work harder to make sure faculty understands the gates have trouble reading a moving card.
Graham said the big issue with students is they are not aware they can obtain permission to access the gates if needed.
“They don’t realize that if they have a need to get into the center of campus, whether it’s a medical reason or they need to drop off something, that we can accommodate them,” he said.
Graham said loading permits are available. Those permits can be purchased at the Visitor’s Center and the Public Safety Building.
Graham said Easy Streets helped the bus routes because there is less traffic on campus, especially during class changes.
“Without having to compete with all those additional cars, [Easy Streets] really has aided [traffic flow],” he said.
Graham said Student Government’s outgoing Director of Transportation, Corey Weber, worked with the office throughout the year.
Weber held Talks with Transportation – conversations with students in Free Speech Alley to learn about transportation issues on campus. After noting student comments about Easy Streets, Weber worked on fixing the problems he could.
“At first, there were a few tweaks with [Easy Streets],” Weber said. “I noticed that the biggest concern came from students with night classes that wanted to get into the gates earlier.”
Weber said he also worked to make sure gates were operating properly. He said some gates might open slowly, which led to traffic lines on campus. Despite these issues, Weber said the program will cause more good than it will problems.
“In the long run, it will benefit the University in more ways than we can imagine,” he said.
LSU Police Department Capt. Russell Rogé said it is too early to determine the effectiveness of the program because it is still young. He said the police department has seen much less traffic from automobiles and more pedestrian and bike traffic.
“The police department is very happy with [Easy Streets], he said. “It seems to really ease traffic around campus.”
Emily Chambers, political science sophomore, said while she has gotten used to the program, she still doesn’t think it’s that effective.
“I think it’s made traffic worse on some of the busier streets,” Chambers said. “It’s made us more reliant on the buses, which aren’t reliable.”
The number of students on buses has noticeably increased, Chambers said. She said this is because of the inability of students to access parking lots blocked by the gates.
Chambers said she now spends about 45 minutes to an hour walking on campus because of the restricted access to streets and parking.
Graham said he has some expectations for refining Easy Streets.
“Some of the things that we’re going to be looking at are development of bike lanes and possibly shutting down a couple more sections similar to what we have at the Union,” he said.
Graham said there has also not been a major overhaul of the University’s transportation system in the past few years.
“Any input that the students would have relative to where they feel buses are needed, where service is needed, where it’s not needed, let SG know,” Graham said. “We will be looking at it pretty much in depth as to some major changes.”
—-Contact Sean Griffin at [email protected].