Residents on Abbott Road are angry about traffic congestion - they should be. There isn't room downtown to house more students, so areas such as the Northern Tier will no doubt grow, bringing more cars along for the ride.

East Lansing city officials need to plan for the continuing influx of students by solving the traffic issue before building any new housing complexes in the Northern Tier.

East Lansing council members and City Manager Ted Staton acknowledged this traffic problem at Tuesday's council meeting and proposed a traffic study in Bath Township to assess the situation.

After already recognizing the problem, it doesn't make sense the council plans to wait for the traffic study to tell it something it already knows.

Money that would be spent on the study should go toward the start of road construction as soon as possible.

Residents and students living in the Northern Tier cannot sit back and let the city take its sweet time addressing these concerns.

In the past, development has not occurred until a tragedy sparks the need. It wasn't until after a MSU student died and another was seriously injured last fall that street lights were installed - four months later.

And sidewalks have been constructed in small increments that should have been present when the complexes were completed.

The sooner this traffic issue gets resolved, the better. The city should not wait for the traffic problems to create a fatal accident closer to downtown before it gets serious about creating solutions.

Another complex, The Beaumont, is in the planning commission stages, and isn't the last development that will be proposed in the area. As long as more students around the globe desire to become Spartans, off-campus housing will continue to grow.

The city needs to accept this future growth and plan ahead to accommodate increased student housing and traffic.