New speed sensor added for grove pedestrians

The Milledgeville chief of police held a meeting this past Monday to assess the dangers to students crossing West Franklin Street from The Grove apartment complex.

The meeting was held Monday between Chief Woodrow W. Blue Jr., the city manager, the public works director and city engineers. Blue ultimately decided that adding a crosswalk to West Franklin Street would be impossible since that section of the road is not an intersection.

Blue concluded that adding a crosswalk there would only increase accidents. Instead, the city plans to add a temporary speed sensor, an electronic device that tells passing drivers their speed, to deter excessive speeding and to remind drivers that the speed limit in that area is 25 miles per hour.

Laurelle Chechopoulos, a sophomore exercise science major, received minor injuries during an afternoon in August while walking in the grass along West Franklin Street when a Ford truck struck her shoulder, completely removing the side mirror.

“I was really lucky that he didn’t catch the rest of my body,” Chechopoulos said. “I think it would be a great idea to put sidewalks in and a crosswalk for students because then that situation would have never happened.”

The section of West Franklin Street that Grove residents must cross is called “the bowl” by the associate director of Auxiliary Services at GCSU, Greg Brown, because of a deep depression in the road that creates high areas in which drivers experience a limited line of sight. The road also displays no signs alerting oncoming drivers of the crossing area.

Donna Piper, a sophomore nursing major at GCSU and a Grove resident for nearly a year, believes the section of West Franklin Street needs a crosswalk.

“This is a really dangerous place to cross. A crosswalk would raise awareness of drivers,” Piper said.

Piper, who walks to all of her classes like many Grove residents, has had close calls with oncoming traffic in this area, she said.

Brown said that something more than a simple crosswalk must be put into place.

“A crosswalk means that it is safe to cross here, and obviously that’s a dangerous area for students,” Brown said. “I think it would be a great idea to put sidewalks in and a crosswalk for students because then that situation would have never happened.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 19 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry