After the death of MSU student Dannielle Brandt earlier this year, MSU employees John Boyse and Thomas Baumann felt there was a more treacherous reason for the Feb. 3 traffic accident — the intersection where it happened.

"We might have avoided a death," Boyse said. "(The intersection) encourages you to cross there, but it is not pedestrian-friendly at all."

Baumann and Boyse said before she was struck, Brandt probably saw a red light for eastbound traffic and felt it was safe to proceed, not knowing westbound traffic had a green light.

"I'm convinced that on the night of the accident when she saw the red light for eastbound traffic, she thought it was the same for westbound," Boyse said.

At the crossing of Mount Hope Road and Farm Lane, the traffic light is timed in a way that one direction of traffic, going either eastbound or westbound, receives a green light while the other remains red. North and southbound do not follow the same pattern.

Due to the amount of traffic flow, this common intersection setup is used to accommodate vehicles either turning or passing through the intersection, Managing Director of Ingham County Road Commission John Midgley said.

Baumann and Boyse said they contacted various people on campus and in the county about their safety concerns, including MSU police Deputy Chief Mike Rice, Director of Campus Planning and Administration Jeff Kacos and Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor Linda Maloney.

Kacos said he never personally received complaints about the intersection — only complaints that require major planning attention are the ones he hears.

Midgley said he received inquiries after Brandt's death but not complaints.

Mount Hope Road and the south part of Farm Lane are owned by Ingham County, Kacos said. MSU just acquired ownership of Farm Lane north of Mount Hope Road as part of MSU's plans to create an underpass where the train tracks are located, he said.

Part of the issue is that for crosswalks to be created, sidewalks must be built on opposing sides of the road in order to be connected by a crosswalk, he said.

There is only one sidewalk on the northwest corner of the intersection near the commuter lot, and there are no crosswalks.

Kacos said MSU would be responsible for the sidewalks, and then the county could put in crosswalks.

Midgley said the county and MSU met to discuss the intersection a number of months ago.

"They were going to talk to us about doing some sort of sidewalk," Midgley said. "We would put crosswalks in if there were sidewalks on both sides."

But with plans to break ground in spring 2008 for the underpass construction, any sidewalk construction done now might have to be torn out, Kacos said.

"The road commission only does roads, not sidewalks," he said. "The question is how much do we do until it's tore out again?"

Boyse, a research assistant for the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, said the underpass construction could take years to complete.

"I'm trying to say it won't wait that long," he said.

Boyse said he has seen many people, especially on weekends when there are football games, try to cross the road. Visitors from out of town park at the Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education and take a shuttle to the stadium, but some are confused by the timing of traffic when they try to cross Mount Hope Road, he said.

The intersection doesn't accommodate pedestrians at all — bicyclists can't even trigger the traffic light in order to pass through, Boyse said.

"It's especially difficult late at night to bicycle through that intersection," he said. "That intersection won't turn green without a vehicle present."

Baumann, a physicist at the on-campus National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, who used to bike through the intersection, said the traffic light is triggered by an induction loop system.

Electrical wiring under the pavement is arranged in several spread out, yet overlapping loops. An approaching vehicle, such as a car or motorcycle, disturbs the electromagnetic field created by the loops and changes the amount of inductance. The change then triggers the traffic light.

Baumann said a bicycle is not massive enough to effectively disrupt the electromagnetic field and trigger the light in the Mount Hope Road and Farm Lane intersection. Unless a vehicle comes along to trigger the light, bicyclists can't travel safely across, he said.

Baumann said he is considering contacting someone in the county about the intersection.

"Back in 2003, if I pushed more, maybe something would have changed," Baumann said. "It didn't happen. My feeling is if nobody says anything, nobody will do anything."