MSU's campus was built at a time when officials did not anticipate thousands of cars on its roads daily.
With one-way streets and those confusing roundabouts, it's easy for drivers to become frustrated.
Increased meter and parking permit prices this year, added to the inconvenience of actually finding a parking spot, would be enough for people to leave their wheels at home.
Drivers also have to deal with pedestrians and bikers who illegally cross on a red light.
Although pedestrians aren't going anywhere and the layout of roads might not change for a while, it's good to see that the on-campus drive will be easier with the addition of new high-tech traffic lights.
The new lighting system is part of MSU's 2020 Vision Plan, which was approved by the MSU Board of Trustees in 2001. The 18-year plan would update buildings across campus.
MSU police plan on upgrading traffic lights on campus this semester. Each light will be connected to a camera system that analyzes the pace of the roads, changing the lights to logically follow patterns of traffic.
Five of the campus' most dangerous intersections - Farm Lane and Auditorium Road, Farm Lane and Wilson Road, Bogue Street and Shaw Lane, Red Cedar Road and Shaw Lane, and Chestnut Road and Shaw Lane - were also revamped to create safer driving conditions.
These types of traffic systems are becoming more common nationwide said James Baron, a spokesman for the American Traffic Safety Services Association. The police are on the right track with making sure we follow the lead of these other communities to ensure we are not left behind as technology changes. Hopefully, drivers will no longer have to wait at a red light if there is no one else at the intersection, and traffic jams should happen less frequently with the new light system.
It's obvious that anything that eases the flow of traffic on campus improves the attitude of many frustrated drivers.
There were 3,253 motor vehicle accidents from 1999-2002.
Drivers should not feel the need for speed with the new traffic-lighting system, which hopefully will reduce the number of speeding tickets handed out this year. More than 900 tickets were written in 2002.
The $30,000 system was financed from traffic-fine payments. It's good to see MSU officials putting that money to good use now, because it might not be around for much longer.
What these drivers didn't realize is by paying that hefty fine, they have helped save a life, which is the ultimate goal of this new system.
It's not the best feeling in the world to see that infamous green Dodge Dakota pull up to a row of cars.
Two students - or traitors, as many like to think - emerge from the cab and sort out who's parked illegally and who's on the straight and narrow. It might cost a lot to drive on campus, but at least MSU police are using that money for a good cause.
