In an effort to eliminate congestion and reduce student at-fault collisions, university officials have announced plans to improve campus infrastructure.
Department of Public Safety officer Tod Johnson has been put in charge of the project. “After an intense search involving looking at the second and sometimes even third pages of Google search results, we’ve hired a German contracting agency to improve infrastructure in the most trafficked places on campus,” said Johnson.
The agency, Blaue Augen Auftraggeber Agentur, has already submitted a proposal that includes changes to high accident areas such as the bridge by CC Little, the Marketplace Dining Center, and the Diag. “The improvements will encourage students to go about their business in a more orderly fashion reminiscent of a Germany from about seventy, maybe seventy-five years ago,” said Erk Bestellen, American liason for Blaue Augen Auftraggerber Agentur.
Bestellen said the university was slightly worried when his company first proposed adding dividers to the Washtenaw Avenue bridge so that students were forced to march in single file lines across it, but BAAA assured university officials the dividers would prevent biker pedestrian collisions as well as eliminating the possibility of pedestrian hit-and-runs, according to Bestellen.
The Blaue Augen Auftraggerber Agentur also proposed reducing the number of food choices at cafeterias to just one meat, starch, and vegetable per meal in order to prevent students from doubling back and bumping into peers with trays heading the opposite direction. Each individual entering the dining hall would also be given a number, each number corresponding to an assigned seat, in order to reduce aimless standing around.
“Initially I was upset that I couldn’t sit with my friends,” said freshman Michael Kane. “But then I realized that being randomly assigned to sit with someone forces me to make new friends. I love being forced to do things.”
The company’s biggest undertaking, however, would be reconstructing the Diag so that the flow of traffic moves clockwise around the M.
“The changes will definitely take some getting used to,” said Johnson, “but student safety is our number one priority, and we have significant evidence that the alterations to Diag usage would eliminate the number of paper cuts that result from all those flyers being handed out; if the Germans are good at one thing, it’s making sure no one is unfairly accosted and harmed.”
Originally published: September 2013
