After a year of construction, the $4 million project to extend Trowbridge Road to Red Cedar Road is nearly complete.
Project planners have opened a visitor center and added a traffic signal, but they forgot one thing - a chariot crossing sign.
Decked out in a full Spartan costume, animal science Assistant Professor Brian Nielsen drove a chariot complete with two horses across the untouched pavement, becoming the first vehicle to officially drive down the extension.
Nielsen’s ride was part of the road extension’s official opening Tuesday.
“They wanted a fun vehicle to be the first, and there’s nothing more special in Spartyland than a chariot,” Nielsen said.
The Trowbridge Road extension slices through the southern portion of campus between Stadium and Service roads.
The extension links the road to Red Cedar Road, making travel to Farm Lane easier on drivers. Jeff Kacos, director of campus park and planning, said the road will alleviate traffic on Wilson Road and Shaw Lane, create a safer intersection and welcome visitors to campus in a more practical fashion.
Visitors will be able to pick up a parking pass or receive directions at the new welcome center.
“We wanted to create a new front door to the university,” Kacos said. “It’s always been kind of confusing whether you were on campus or not there. This is giving us a front door that comes right off the highway.”
But road planners weren’t thinking only of vehicle safety when they developed their plan.
The new road also includes a bike path and a pedestrian walkway for Spartan Village residents and people walking from Trowbridge businesses.
Lorri Dudley, an employee at Goodrich’s Shop-Rite, 940 Trowbridge Road, said business has been poor all summer because of the construction.
However, she expects things to pick up more when the road opens.
“We’re really looking forward to how smoothly the traffic will flow,” she said. “It won’t bottleneck there any more. I’ve been trying to drive as far as I can before the barricades stop me just to see.”
Although the road has been open for use during intermittent periods since mid-August, Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony was the final opening.
“We were getting the bugs worked out before the official opening,” Kacos said. “We were right on schedule. I think this is a big improvement.”
Other summer construction included a new traffic signal at the intersection of Farm Lane and Wilson Road.
The intersection was labeled as the most dangerous on campus by MSU’s Department of Police and Public Safety.
And the department would like to see the new road stay safe too.
MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor said people need to be conscious that the nearby highway speeds will soon slow down to school zone speeds of 25 mph.
“It’s a residential area, so we have students going back and forth,” she said. “We’re not worried about speeding problems, but people will need to be more observant than in the past.”
Jamie Gumbrecht can be reached at gumbrec1@msu.edu.
