Every day is a showdown between pedestrians and cars at the wide-open intersection connecting the Waverly Apartments to the Suburban Plaza shopping center. Apartment dwellers go out for quick grocery trips and are met with a wide intersection and a crosswalk that doesn’t take them to their destination. Meanwhile, cars and trucks on the road are met with an unexpected three-way stop, causing near-collisions regularly.

This intersection benefits nobody. Cars can't drive safely and pedestrians can’t walk safely. While it may seem that pedestrians and cars are at odds here, the real enemy is the design of the road and this intersection.

As a pedestrian, the first glaring issue is the fact that the crosswalks and sidewalks don’t take me to where I want to go. The two major places people travel to are the other half of the Waverly apartment complex, and the shopping center. Neither of these paths have direct crosswalks or sidewalks to get to them. Instead, pedestrians have to walk across traffic or in the road, which is extremely unsafe (and just plain scary). This is worsened at night, when the lack of streetlights makes some pedestrians nearly invisible to drivers. 

For drivers, one issue is the openness of the road. Coming off of Elkton Road, there is no structure to make drivers slow down, so they speed. Another problem for drivers is that there is a three, rather than four, way stop. Cars coming from the highway don’t have a stop sign. This is extremely confusing for drivers navigating this area, as three-way stops are uncommon. Not only do drivers from the highway come barreling down the road, they often nearly hit other drivers who are confused about the stop sign system here.

Combine all of these variables, and you get a dangerous and scary intersection for everybody (this is true equality, right?). 

Cat Carlson-Estes