NEWS
It’s a, humid, windy, 90-Degree Wednesday at the Davie campus’s Davie West building, and a uniformed, orange-vested service aide from the town’s police department raises her hands to stop the roaring vehicles — most going over the speed limit — on College Avenue so students can walk across the two-way street to their classes.
Traffic on the avenue is quite busy in the afternoon, with almost no opportunity to cross unless the gloved hands of the Davie police service aide are raised. And before 3 p.m., there is no one there to direct traffic.
“‘I’m used to leap-frogging traffic in the morning,'” one of the service aides recalled with some amusement about a remark made by a pedestrian about crossing the road before 3 p.m.
FAU will have a pedestrian crossing signal up and running by the beginning of the fall semester, nine months after the building was officially inaugurated, said Phyllis Bebko, associate vice president for Broward campuses.
“We’re sorry that we didn’t get it done sooner,” Bebko said. “We’re looking forward to the new signal.”
With the signal up and running, FAU will no longer need to pay the Davie police department $4,400 a month to provide crossing guards from 3 to 11 p.m.
The signal will not be a full traffic signal. Instead, it will be a pedestrian signal, according to Bebko.
Broward County rejected the full traffic signal proposal because the number of cars going through the intersection per hour was not high enough, according to Eric Czerniejewski, a traffic consultant for FAU.
The UP asked Czerniejewski for traffic counts at the crosswalk, but as of press time, they have not been provided.
Unlike a full traffic signal, which changes color at different intervals, the College Avenue signal will only change color when a pedestrian pushes the crosswalk button at a corner of the intersection.
The process of getting a signal put up started in November 2010, and will end by August 2011.
Until next fall, students may have to be extra-careful when crossing to attend classes.
English major Sandra Logan, on the other hand, doesn’t think so.
“It gets busy out there, but … I know how to cross the street,” said the senior.
