With the recent opening of Dunkin’ on campus, foot traffic to the Academic Center has increased substantially. With this comes the question, how pedestrian friendly is SNHU? If we take a look at the crosswalks, sidewalks, and streets around campus, we can see that the answer is not friendly enough.
With the large increase in foot traffic to the Academic Center, it’s important for the area to be pedestrian friendly and accessible. Currently, there is no crosswalk in between the Hospitality Center and ACC. A lot of student cross here, especially students coming from SETA and Hospitality, so a raised crosswalk would benefit students greatly.
Continuing on from this area, the sidewalks going from the crosswalk down to ACC are steep and narrow. Widening these sidewalks will make it easier to traverse during high traffic times of the day.
The single most popular road crossing is the Green Space crosswalk. This crosswalk does do things right: it’s wide, and it has a pedestrian controlled stoplight. Being able to stop cars during peak foot traffic, such as passing times, is important.
What could be improved? For starters, the crosswalk should be raised. The road this crosswalk is on is relatively straight, allowing higher speeds from drivers. Installing a raised sidewalk here promotes drivers to slow down more, and also if someone is waiting to cross, slowing down for the raised crosswalk may convince drivers to just commit to stopping to allow pedestrians to pass.
Another addition to improve this would be to install an in-street ‘Yield to pedestrians in crosswalk’ sign. A sign such as this in the middle of the street would encourage drivers to slow down and be aware of their surroundings. It also desperately needs a repaint.
In total, a lot of sidewalks at SNHU could use raising, for example at the four-way intersection coming into campus on North River Rd. The widening of sidewalks, as well as implementing raised crosswalks and improving signage will make walking as a student much safer at SNHU.
