MSA awaits survey results for bridge decision

Administrators remain undecided about the bridge's effectiveness.

By Megan Donohue

Published Sept. 22, 2009

A walking traffic study was conducted by Vice-Chancellor Jackie Jones to determine if a bridge is needed to cross College Avenue between Rollins Street and University Avenue.

Meetings to discuss the proposed bridge will begin this week and continue when the results of the study come back at the end of October.

The Missouri Students Association worked with student feedback during discussions with the administration; it is also waiting for the walking traffic study results to go further with the project.

"Student leaders have really advocated the project," MSA Student Communications Director Tim Noce said. "Especially over there with the fraternities on College Avenue, it's been very positive. There have been a few students who say they may not really use it. I think that's probably because they just don't want to change what they are doing essentially."

Noce said the administration is as mixed as the student body.

"From the administration side it's been also kind of mixed," Noce said. "Some people have been hard to get a hold of, some people have not been the easiest to work with and then there are some administrators who say, 'This really needs to get done, and I'm glad somebody's doing it.' "

Observers sitting on College Avenue and counting the number of pedestrians crossing the street conducted the walking traffic survey, Campus Facilities spokeswoman Karlan Seville said.

"We are waiting for the results, and the final report should be coming in at the end of October," Seville said. "We really don't know what they are going to propose when the study comes out. Right now they are just giving us numbers and options for how pedestrians might come across College Avenue between University Avenue and Rollins Street."

So far, MSA has run into minimal problems, Noce said.

"There haven't really been any major problems except that we've got to work through the bureaucracy, and since we are working with the university and the city themselves, and everybody who lives over on that side, it's like you have to work through two or three bureaucracies," Noce said. "It's just been very time-consuming."

Beyond feedback and the survey, not much has happened with the bridge since August, Noce and MSA President Jordan Paul said.

Paul said nothing different has happened since school began.

"We've been out in that area a couple of times, and we've seen first of all folks were out there doing that traffic monitoring, but other than that not much," Paul said.

He said he plans on talking about the bridge in his Thursday meeting with Jones.

"That is our first meeting this semester, and we are going to be talking about more specifically what the time table will look like and what any plans would look like," Paul said. "They're going to dictate a large part of if not all of that conversation because they are the ones that dictate the funding to a large degree."