Cynthia D. Milazzo, MPA
(Committee Chair)
Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities & Services

ShanVerie Akins
Student Government Association

Jamie Byrne, PhD
Associate Professor/Director
School of Mass Communication

Charles Chastain, PhD
Professor/Criminal Justice

Yvonne Croston
Institutional Assistant/Adjunct Faculty
Counseling, Adult and Rehabilitation Education


Tyfnae Curenton
President
Student Government Association

William Jacobson, EdD
Professor
Counseling, Adult and Rehabilitation Education

Sheri Lowery, BS
Graduate Student Association

David Sink, DPA
Senior Research Specialist/Professor
Institute of Government

Wendi J. W. Williams, PhD
Assistant Professor
Earth Science

Engineering
Education
Enforcement
Pedestrian Safety
On and Around The UALR Campus
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Pedestrian Safety On and Around
The UALR Campus

Report to Chancellor Joel Anderson
May 2004



Introduction

A quality pedestrian safety program at UALR should be built on three strong pillars:
engineering, education, and enforcement. Of the three pillars, engineering is the most important
to plan correctly before proceeding. Once roads exist, the built environment lasts for decades.
Education and enforcement can be improved from time to time without costly consequences.
Improving the built environment can be very costly.

We believe that good pedestrian and motorist behavior can be taught. We seek well-planned and
executed designs for crosswalks, medians, and other physical improvements. And, we appreciate
the need for assuring that both walkers and drivers follow the rules established for their safety.
Perhaps these premises are evident, yet we feel they need emphasizing. We have based our
findings and recommendations on a balance of these mutually reinforcing supports; without any
one of them, the strategies we put forth are weakened.

Over four months in late 2003 and early 2004, a task force numbering ten faculty members, staff,
and students discussed, read about, and observed pedestrian and motorist behavior. The death of
Asst. Prof. Rhonda Lewis on October 2, struck by a speeding, out-of-control car as she walked
across University Avenue, provoked the study, commissioned by Chancellor Anderson.

We have organized our recommendations by zones (i.e. University Avenue, 28
th
Street, Fair
Park, Campus, and Asher Avenue) and included a section on education. We appreciate the
contributions of Amy Barnes and Kim Fox of the Office of Communications in preparing a
Pedestrian Safety Education Plan, which appears as Appendix C. Complete lists of all
recommendations forms Appendices A and B. We appreciate the many suggestions we received
from students, staff, and faculty; we considered them all, regardless of cost or feasibility,
although our recommendations are grounded in the reality of limited funding.

Many of our recommendations must be carried out in cooperation with the City of Little Rock
and other entities. For purposes of this report, we have not assigned responsibilities. However,
we assume the reader will know that changes to the city streetscape require City action. We have
been encouraged by the cooperation of Jim McKenzie at Metroplan and Bob Turner, Guy Lowe
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and Bill Henry from the City in our study. We have every expectation that such cooperation will
lead to positive changes for the University District.

The task force met with experts and professionals in the fields of pedestrian safety, vehicular
traffic management, transportation planning, and civil engineering. We conducted library and
on-line research, interviewed students, faculty, and staff, convened five on-campus public
hearings, conducted pedestrian counts at key crossings, and observed walking and driving
behavior during daylight and nighttime hours.

The Context of an Urban Campus

The inherent nature of a busy urban campus requires constant vigilance over the movement of
vehicles and pedestrians. They share many of the same pathways and frequently cross each
others route. Each university campus develops differently in space and time for different
purposes. Commuter campuses particularly face the dilemma of desiring to serve their driving
public while not giving over untoward amounts of valuable space to cars. At the same time,
universities desire to serve and protect their walking public by designing a network of walking
paths and visually pleasing, safe plazas, while controlling their passage to zones that dont
unduly conflict with vehicular right-of-way. The following list outlines the particular challenges
facing UALR as an urban, commuter campus.

1. Increased density. UALRs main campus presents a special set of circumstances created
by increasing density of buildings, parking lots, cars, and pedestrians on a relatively small
expanse of land. A busy north-south thoroughfare defines the western edge of campus,
yet must be crossed by pedestrians frequenting restaurants or retrieving their parked cars.
UALR over time has doubled in enrollment and vehicles while not greatly expanding its
landmass. This realization frames recommendations focused on the control of highly
interactive pedestrian and vehicular movement.

2.

The nature of class schedules and a limited road network. Unlike a residential
campus, UALR is a commuter campus with one residence hall and a limited number of
bus riders. There are 1, 944 motorists assigned to reserved lots and approximately 5,000
open parking permits issued each academic year. Thats a huge number of cars that
arrive at a limited number of entrances and campus drives. During concentrated periods
of the academic day (8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m.), Public Safety estimates that
there are 3,500 cars vying for the 3,741 parking places on campus whose operators may
have departed too late from home or work and who are anxious to park and get to class
on time. Under pressures of congestion and time, they sometimes make bad choices
regarding their relationships with pedestrians. Once those motorists alight on foot, they
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go on taking chancesby jaywalking and cutting across active parking lots, for
exampleto get to class on time.

3.

Heavy concentration of night classes. Research and common sense show that more
accidents occur at night when visibility is limited. UALR offers a great number of class
sections between 5:40 and 10:00 p.m. They bring over 3,000 pedestrians to campus.
During the winter months, a season of a standard time zone and rainy weather, visibility
is impaired, putting a premium on good lighting and pavement markings.

4.

A considerable number of disabled students. UALR has a proactive, supportive
program that attracts students with various disabilities to the UALR campus. Students in
wheelchairs and those who are hearing or visually impaired have particular challenges
crossing streets and dealing with vehicular traffic that crosses their paths.

5.

UALR as an open campus. Anyone can drive through campus at any time of the day
or night. Beyond security concerns, such a high degree of access means that through
traffic is competing with parking traffic and pedestrians for easy movement through
campus. These competing needs increase friction on and around campus roadways.
Observation indicates a heavy use of 28
th
Street (connecting Oak Forest with University
Avenue) and Campus Drive and 32
nd
Street as a route south to Asher Avenue.

6.

Importance of University Avenue to Little Rock. A quick glance at a city map detects
a lack of north-south arterial routes. In fact, University Avenue is one of only three
thoroughfares (the others being I-430 on the west and I-30 on the east). Hence, city
traffic engineers have pushed hard for widening University Avenue to three lanes each
direction from I-30 on the south to Markham Street on the north. From the perspective of
moving cars, such a widening is necessary and desirable; from a pedestrian perspective
and creation of a university district or community that strengthens the relationship of
the campus and the shopping district, widening poses new challenges.

7. Traffic counts on University and Asher Avenue. The corollary to point 6 is that
University and Asher Avenue have some of the highest traffic counts (and corresponding
accident rates) in the state. University Avenue carries 27,000 vehicles a day, 30 percent
over recommended capacity. Asher Avenue carries 23,000 vehicles, resulting in their
intersection being ranked the busiest in the state. Motorists go from a higher-speed,
packed corridor to a low-speed, packed corridor as they enter the campus. The abrupt
transition is difficult to make for drivers intent on getting to class on time.

8.

UALRs location in an area developed in the 1960s-1980s. Architectural and
infrastructure design reflects the decade(s) in which it was used to create public and
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private buildings, public and private spaces. Examples in the University District abound.
Most relevant to pedestrians is the 1970s habit of building streets without sidewalks;
hence, we have a 1.2-mile stretch of University Avenue with an intermittent sidewalk
along its western edge. The sidewalk along the eastern side, inside the universitys fence,
was built by UALR.