After three years of gradual construction, the next phase of the McKinley Safety Improvement Project is nowhere in sight.
Jim Lowe, director of engineering and operations, said the project's time frame would depend on the passage of federal funding.
Because of a rigid schedule of events, Lowe said, the Indiana Department of Transportation would need to receive all plans, drawings and specifications for the project by November in order to begin construction the following summer.
The third phase of the project will transform portions of McKinley and Riverside avenues to be more pedestrian-friendly, using similar features found near the center of campus, Lowe said.
He said each phase of the project targets the day after commencement as its starting point because working during the summer would disrupt fewer cars and fewer students.
The next phase will transform Riverside Avenue between Meadow Lane and Dicks Street and McKinley Avenue between Riverside and University Avenue, Lowe said.
"On Riverside, in the future, will have the ability to cross one lane of traffic, get to the middle and stop and catch your breath," he said. "Then you turn your attention to one direction of traffic. As a pedestrian, it allows you those opportunities to protect yourself."
Freshman business major Lauren Van Denack said she thought planters and designated crosswalks across Riverside would keep pedestrians safer.
She said she hopes the sidewalk behind the Burkhardt Building would be redone, as it is very narrow.
Junior magazine journalism and pre-med major Samantha Knaack said she would like to see a stoplight installed near Woodworth Complex as well as pothole repair in that area.
"A pothole exploded my roommate's tire," Knaack said. "I find myself trying to dodge them, but I go into the other lane."
Lowe, in a previous interview, said the Scramble Light would be replaced with a traditional intersection as part of the McKinley Project.
Although the countdown and the audio timer will remain, he said, traffic would no longer stop in both directions while students cross diagonally.
Knaack said she likes the Scramble Light but would prefer the intersection operate normally later in the day when there are fewer pedestrians.
"When it starts chirping, you don't have to worry about looking," she said.
Lowe said there would be similarities in features between phases one and three, such as the large planters running along McKinley Avenue, but high-end materials such as granite might not be used.
Planning for the McKinley Project began in the 1980s, he said, but it was not until the 1990s that the university secured funding.
"It seems like [the project has taken] a long time, but good things take some time," Lowe said.
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