No students attend the SGA’s annual safety walk

The SGA hosted its annual Safety Walk yesterday night, leading a tour through the campus and highlighting areas where students reported feeling unsafe.

Student Government Association Senior Vice President Elliott Morris led the tour, which was attended by administrators, university police and members of the SGA.

"Across the past month, students have been talking to me … about places they feel unsafe on campus, and a lot of them had to do with lighting, so we'll address those as we go around," Morris said to the attendees in the Baltimore Room in the Stamp Student Union before beginning the bus tour.

Only students affiliated with the SGA went on the tour, which was geared more toward administrators who could make the necessary changes, SGA spokesman Joel Cohen said.

The lack of students at the event was surprising; 60 attended the first annual walk in 2007, but a mere two attended last year.

"I think really the student input part was when students identified the areas on campus," Cohen said. "Really, the point of the walk is to work with administrators because they're the ones who can make the changes that we need."

Stops on the tour included Lot 1D, Mowatt Lane alongside South Campus Commons, Lot S4, an Orange Line bus stop on Regents Drive near Route 1, Leonardtown and Lot 2. All of these areas were highlighted by students, who had the opportunity to use pushpins on a map to highlight areas of the campus were they felt unsafe.

Morris highlighted some successes from safety walks in the past, including a crosswalk on Mowatt Lane. He also pointed out specifics about the areas he said are particularly dangerous, such as the bus stop, where students often sit on the curb.

"We'll look at possible solutions for how to basically re-engineer that area to make students sit not on the curb with their legs in the road," Morris said.

Maj. Larry Volz said before the tour began that one of the dangerous areas highlighted in previous years — a corner of Lot 2 — was eliminated by construction on Oakland Hall. But the same construction also put a blue light phone out of service and eliminated a well-lit shortcut through Denton Community for students who park in Lot 2.

Volz said much of the work done to improve safety on campus is based on improving the design of campus environments to cut down on crime. Such improvements include trimming trees to increase visibility, which has happened near Cumberland Hall and a bridge near the Comcast Center.

Frank Brewer, associate vice president for Facilities Management, said he was satisfied with the results tours have yielded in years past.

"I've been here for a dozen years, so I've been on many of these walks, and I think every one of them has brought up good stuff, good information, just as this one has," he said.

Brewer and Morris have already set up a meeting to review the suggestions from the tour.

SGA Director of Environmental Affairs Joanna Calabrese, who led the Safety Walk last year as senior vice president, said a downside to this approach is the delay in execution.

"It takes a matter of six months to a year to see any of these safety fixes actually implemented.  Paving crosswalks and making curb cuts and similar fixes usually require specific weather conditions," she said. "It's time-intensive, but the impacts are long-lasting and worth it."

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