The Daily Collegian

Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Cristian Gomez Two UMass students, Dan Ron and Amy Jackson, performed a study for their Statistics 501 class of how many pedestrians looked before crossing the campus streets.

Visitors driving on the University of Massachusetts campus for the first time may find themselves swerving and stopping to avoid collision with pedestrians crossing the street.

After several pedestrians were struck last year, police are attempting to curb the number of collisions and two UMass students conducted a survey to bring the issue to the forefront.

Only 27 percent of pedestrians who use the crosswalk near the University of Massachusetts Southwest Residential Area on Massachusetts Avenue look for traffic before they cross, according to a study conducted by two UMass senior mathematics and statistics students.

The two students, Dan Ron and Amy Jackson, performed the study for the Statistics 501 class they were enrolled in last semester.

"We as a group decided that we almost run over people when we're driving," Ron said. The Massachusetts Ave. crosswalk, which links the Southwest Residential Area to the central campus, was chosen because it is the busiest at UMass, according to Ron.

"One of us counted the total number of people walking by," said Ron. "The other one counted how many of them actually looked or made any effort to turn their head before they crossed."

Some UMass students were already aware of the problem from personal experience. "It's crazy how some people will just walk out into the street without looking," said senior Seth Quinn, who drives through the campus regularly.

"I've almost gotten hit a couple of times," said sophomore Southwest resident James Brown. "I've seen it happen to other people quite a few times too."

The UMass Police Department created a pilot pedestrian safety program designed to help manage the Mass Ave. crosswalk. The program's plan called for UMPD cadets to monitor the crosswalk on Mondays and Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. However, the UMPD ran into scheduling conflicts with the cadets.

"We were somewhat skeptical about how many hours we could get from the student cadets who do attend classes during the day," said Patrick Archibald, Deputy Chief of the UMPD. "As a result, we try to keep it down to two days where we try to keep two cadets out there, and we've had some success."

Continued...

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