Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Mike Schutte and Off-Campus Senator Parya Mahmoudi met with Denver City Engineer David DiGiacomo on Tuesday, Jan. 28 to discuss the possibility of putting a crosswalk in at Evans Avenue and Franklin Street west of campus.
Since the summer of 2013, both senators have been in talks with Denver officials about possible measures to make the Evans Avenue crosswalk a safer path for students.
Schutte stated the most feasible possibility for slowing down traffic on Evans. This comes after his meeting with DiGiacomo. Previous ideas, such as lowering the speed limit, have failed.
“There’s no speed limit sign from [South Columbine] up until [South Downing] streets,” said Schutte. “The only real indication of speed limit is the school zone sign for Asbury Elementary School, yet there is nothing that indicates the speed is actually 35 miles per hour. Putting up a crosswalk would hopefully prompt drivers to slow down and give the pedestrians some kind of comfort that there’s a place where you should at least cross instead of a free-for-all mentality.”
Mahmoudi agreed with the idea of installing a crosswalk on the aforementioned intersection, seeing it as the best possible solution.
“We’re central Denver, and traffic congestion does play a big part in it,” said Mahmoudi. “[Installing a crosswalk] would have much more of an impact than just DU. It’ll extend a couple miles.”
Schutte further described that a crosswalk at the intersection would alleviate the dangerous traffic he believes stretches from Illegal Pete’s to the university, especially in light of the death of Wilson King in that area last year.
“There’ve been fatalities in that area,” said Schutte. “If you talk about crossing Evans there, it’s a gamble. It’s a high pedestrian area yet there’s a borderline highway where drivers are speeding a lot.”
While both Schutte and Mahmoudi acknowledge the jurisdiction issues associated with finding methods of making pedestrian travel safer, they also believe that for some DU students the area is a staple of social interaction and dining.
Mahmoudi stated the current 35 miles per hour speed limit on Evans encourages drivers to go 40 or 45 miles down the road, bringing great risk to both pedestrians and other drivers.
“Comparing that to other public institutions in the state, like CU Boulder and CSU-Fort Collins, they have much lower speed limits,” said Mahmoudi. “We want to make [Evans Avenue] a safer place for students and drivers and hopefully encourage drivers to slow down as they go through that street.”
Freshman Sean Stroh, does not believe that placing a crosswalk at the Evans-Franklin intersection would help the situation, but rather people looking to cross Evans should use the crosswalks currently in place.
“Obviously people just sort of run across Evans because they’re jaywalking and don’t want to cross at the crosswalks,” said Stroh. “I think people should just stick to the crosswalks that are already there.”
Another possibility Schutte mentioned would be to expand the median bisecting Evans Avenue out to where the road meets South Franklin Street.
Both Schutte and Mahmoudi encourage students and staff to contact the city of Denver at the 311 number. They also encourage students to push the city to further consider a crosswalk and other possible construction routes on Evans Avenue. Further questions or comments can be directed towards DUsenate@gmail.com.
