The streets in between High St and Neil Ave are mostly one-way streets. One street in particular is West Norwich Avenue. This street is a one-way going towards Neil, away from High. It consists of lots of housing that doesn’t have driveways for parking, so street parking is required. Sometimes it’s a pain having to access this street from High St and not being able to go towards High St, but it would be even more difficult having two- way traffic on top of the street parking making it feel congested. Because of the housing and the street parking, there’s not much to do to the change the streets and make them better. There’s ample sidewalk access because of all of the housing, but it’s really only wide enough for two people, which isn’t ideal for wheelchairs. However, widening the sidewalks would either take away street width or lot size for housing. They’re a little broken up and run-down, so some re-paving of the street would be a good change. The only ramps onto the sidewalks are at the ends but putting them in the middle takes away from parking. There’s also not a lot that we can change about the street width for the same reason as the sidewalks. One thing we could do would be to allow access to some of the street parking, but then the people who live there wouldn’t have anywhere to park, so that would most likely just create more problems. There’s not usually a ton of traffic flow through this street making it fairly safe for someone to cross, it’s just smart for pedestrians and drivers to be aware of one another.
High Street is a different story though. There’s lots of traffic going through this street on a daily basis at almost any hour of the day. It’s a 4-lane, 2-way road, however, the two lanes on the end are usually occupied by street parking. There is one crosswalk outside of stoplight crosswalks, which is convenient for pedestrians, but not so much for drivers. There’s nothing to signal whether someone is crossing or not. This could be a good implementation. The sidewalks are in good condition and they’re wide enough for roughly four people, give or take. The streets on the other hand are kind of narrow, especially when small turn lanes (which I find very important and useful) are added in. There’s also some construction going on, which occasionally bleeds out into other lanes, causing even more congestion.
The transportation system on Tuttle Park Place was working very efficiently when our group walked the route on Friday afternoon. The street seems wide enough for daily traffic, with two lanes going in each direction and a turn lane at the stoplights. However, the street tends to get very congested on Saturdays, when thousands of people are in town for the football games. Tuttle Park Place is usually barricaded with security vehicles because the football players stay at the Blackwell hotel. I do not think any size street would be sufficient to hold the amount of traffic that game day brings. On Friday, the traffic seemed to be driving at a reasonable speed, unlike the cars on High Street. The flow of traffic could be slightly improved around the hotel, where visitors pull into a circular drive to access the front door. The drive successfully gets traffic off the road, but if many cars are lined up they could block the crosswalks. The hotel might be better off having a larger entrance in the back of the building, where visitors and their cars would be out of the main traffic of Tuttle Park.
The sidewalks in the area were well maintained and free of hazards. They do not get as much foot traffic as sidewalks further in campus, but the university still does a good job maintaining them. There were ramps at every crosswalk for wheelchairs. However, there were not many benches to sit on throughout the space in case someone needs to take a break or does not feel good. While the path may be meant for moving circulation, students and parents might enjoy having a nice place to sit down in warmer months. As a pedestrian, I felt very safe walking along Tuttle Park. In one section, a row of trees lines both sides of the sidewalk and a wide strip of grass separates pedestrians from vehicular traffic. Closer to Lane Avenue, there is even a building that hangs over the sidewalk and shields pedestrians from the elements. Overall, the stretch of Tuttle Park Place between Knowlton and Lane Avenue is well planned and effectively used.
One of the areas we chose to focus our observations on was the campus area along Woodruff Avenue. In terms of vehicular-traffic flow, it is an area that tends to get quite a bit of traffic. However, the only time traffic flows seem to present much of an issue are either early in the morning when people are arriving to campus, around lunch time when people are coming and going, and later on in the afternoon, usually around 5-6pm when there is an influx of people leaving campus all at once. Woodruff is a two -way street, so there is traffic flowing both ways, which helps to alleviate some of the build-up during times when traffic is heavy. However, from the intersection of Woodruff and Tuttle to the intersection of Woodruff and College Rd, the street does seem to be a bit narrow, with there only being one lane in either direction (excluding turning lanes), whereas when you go past the intersection of Woodruff at Tuttle and College Rd, the street turns into a wider width, two-lane road.
Because the portion of Woodruff we focused on lies directly on the academic campus, just as the area gets a lot of vehicular traffic, it also gets a lot of foot traffic from students and professors travelling to and from their courses as well as others be they workers or visitors travelling throughout campus. It would make sense with that in mind that there be an adequate amount of sidewalk walking space, walkways, crosswalk signs, curb ramps and so on to accommodate for the needs of pedestrians, which is true of the campus area along Woodruff as well as much of the campus area all together. The sidewalks are fairly wide, which is great, especially during times when classes are beginning or letting out. There seems to be curb ramps provided for every walk space. There is an area in front of the North Campus Recreation Center and Traditions dining hall where there are diagonal sidewalks. Being that that area in particular receives a lot of foot traffic the design really alleviates the potential for congestion in the area. You don’t get the feeling that you are walking on top of someone else trying to get to your destination. In terms of street safety, for the most part vehicles travelling throughout the area make sure to abide by the posted speed limit. There is also a crosswalk sign at nearly every crosswalk, or some kind of sign to signal to vehicles that the area is a pedestrian walkway. The one improvement/ addition I would suggest is that there be a bike lane added to the street just to provide a little more safety to those travelling on bikes.
