From her apartment window near the intersection of Collingwood Drive and Grand River Avenue, Rachel Wool has a bird’s-eye view of north campus - and all the vehicle accidents occurring on the way in.
“I’m looking out my window and I see accidents almost every day,” the social relations senior said. “I think it is dangerous. We see accidents every day, everywhere.
“We need more traffic lights and signs, and they need to be more clear and distinct.”
But campus and city traffic administrators are already working on improving intersections.
John Matuszak, East Lansing engineering administrator, said improvements to the Collingwood Drive and Grand River Avenue have already reduced the number of serious accidents to about 15 per year from 25 per year.
The most dangerous intersection in East Lansing is at Hagadorn Road and Grand River Avenue, with at least 40 accidents per year Matuszak said.
“We are looking at plans to improve that location and make it safer, as much for pedestrians and bikers as for drivers,” Matuszak said. “A lot of problems deal with driver attention and matters of paying attention to stopped vehicles.
“There are some intersections that just have more traffic accidents than others.”
On campus, 1999 construction to the intersection at Farm Lane and Auditorium Road brought down the number of accidents from about 12 property damage and five injury accidents to about three property damage accidents and no injuries.
Bob Maki, campus traffic engineer and registered professional engineer, said officials will change signals to turn on automatically, instead of with the push of a button.
“Except for education, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it except to wait for the walk indication,” Maki said. “This intersection used to be a hotbed of pedestrian and bicycle problems, and we’re eliminating that now.”
Construction in 2000 to the intersections of Shaw Lane with Red Cedar Road, Chestnut Road and Bogue Street have had mixed results, Maki said.
The intersection of Shaw Lane and Chestnut Road saw an immediate increase in the number of bike accidents, but about the same number of vehicle accidents per year.
The number of accidents at Red Cedar Road and Shaw went down after improvements were made. The roundabout built at Shaw Lane and Bogue decreased the number of right-angle accidents, which are typically more serious - but increased the number of sideswipe accidents.
East Lansing officials have been considering replacing a four-way stop at the corner of Albert Avenue and Charles Street with a mini-roundabout.
“Roundabouts have their place,” Maki said. “They’re not a cure-all. There’s a lot of roundabout zealots out there who are trying to sell them, but we’d have to analyze carefully before we put another one in.
Future projects may include lowering Farm Lane to avoid having to wait for train crossings at a cost of $20 million, additional work to Service Road, retiming the lights on the Trowbridge extension, placing more yield signs in crosswalks and revamping of the intersection near Sparty.
“That’s next on this list as far as crashes go,” Maki said. “We just don’t know exactly what we’re going to do with Sparty yet.”
