College Campus

[Passport1]

Spring is in full swing in the south. I have the good fortune several times a week to be on the local college campus in my town. It is way different from the sterile, concrete fortress where I went. Here the azalas and pear trees are in bloom and the campus is a flowering picture.. My observation is about the students. Their modes of transportation are walking, skateboards, electric bikes even roller skates sometimes.

What concerns me is their casual indifference to traffic on the campus streets. The speed limit is ~15mph yet the students seem oblivious to the cars, school buses and construction trucks. Many just dart out into the designated walk ways with their phones in front of their faces. I'm not pinging on young adults but the disregard for their own safety is baffling.

Otherwise being on campus is a delight and the eye candy is abundant.

 

[dadto2]

Sounds exactly how my generation behaved on campus 30 something years ago.

 

[jeepman3071]

I work on a college campus. If I need to drive across campus during the summer, it takes me ~5 min. If I have to drive across campus during classes it can take me 30-40 minutes depending on traffic. Bikes and scooters are the preferred way to go here. The students being tied to their phones is nothing new, it was an issue back when I was a student in 2009.

 

[Pew]

I notice it everywhere, not just a college campus. The amount of folks in the business district of downtowns with their face in their phone or reading a book while walking is astounding. Not my problem though - if they want to get hit by right-of-way traffic then I'm fine with that.

 

[JHZR2]

In some places folks will jaywalk more. Sometimes it’s based upon where the sidewalks and crosswalks go, or where groups of stores or restaurants are. If someone can cross versus walk effectively three half blocks extra to use the crosswalk, they’ll take the easy path.

Being oblivious? I don’t know that it’s new or phone based. In college I remember there were four big crosswalks that allowed students to cross two of the larger streets that crossed campus. They were well marked, signed, lit. And students would get hit there from time to time. The streets they crossed weren’t big thoroughfares, they were just 25mph streets with two lanes in each direction.

On the other side of campus there was a bigger, call it 35mph road that students had to cross to get to dorms. People drove fast on it. They would have a cop ticketing kids that jaywalked or crossed when not on the white walking notation.

This all predated smart phones. There were oblivious idiots before there were smart phones.

 

[tbm5690]

The campus where I went to school has lined the center of the main avenue with raised plant beds so that students are forced to cross at crosswalks only. Very effective in eliminating jaywalkers and driving through you are only stopping every block and not every 5 feet.

 

[97prizm]

Spring is in full swing in the south. I have the good fortune several times a week to be on the local college campus in my town. It is way different from the sterile, concrete fortress where I went. Here the azalas and pear trees are in bloom and the campus is a flowering picture.. My observation is about the students. Their modes of transportation are walking, skateboards, electric bikes even roller skates sometimes.

What concerns me is their casual indifference to traffic on the campus streets. The speed limit is ~15mph yet the students seem oblivious to the cars, school buses and construction trucks. Many just dart out into the designated walk ways with their phones in front of their faces. I'm not pinging on young adults but the disregard for their own safety is baffling.

Otherwise being on campus is a delight and the eye candy is abundant.

Sounds better than CU Boulder. Full of yuppies, and they wasted my tax dollars on custom granite to plaster the buildings with. They really drive this home on open house tours with perspective students visiting. I just see wasted resources.