LSUPD said the recent changes for game day traffic, including the closure of Highland Road on some game days, have seen positive results in game day safety.

Chief Marshall Walters said closing Highland Road when LSU hosted Texas A&M late last month was effective. He said the closure reduced traffic on the road in the hours before the game, which he said means many people who drove through campus during that time were not there for the game. Reducing this traffic helps police be more responsive, he said.

“What it does is it allows our police officers to move around more readily to calls for service and conduct routine patrols,” Walters said. “It also reduced the pedestrian vehicle conflict at those intersections around Highland.”

Walters told Reveille the decision to close Highland will be done on a game-by-game basis. The road was not closed for last weekend’s game against Arkansas. LSUPD will monitor traffic on Highland for Saturday’s home game against Western Kentucky and close the road as needed based on pedestrian and vehicle volume.

“It’s something we’re going to look at continuing on an as-needed basis because the downside is if you enact it when you don’t need it, then you’re creating traffic problems on the perimeter of campus.”

Walters also addressed the student reaction to the closure of Unity Field, a popular tailgating area for Black Greek organizations and minority student groups at the corner of South Stadium Drive and Highland Road.

“Every decision that was made was about making the game day atmosphere as safe as we could based on the two incidents where we had shots fired on campus in previous games,” Walters said. “We felt like it was the right decision, and it will not just be the Police Department decision on what that looks like going forward.”