The kickoff of a new campaign hopes to encourage safety awareness for pedestrians and drivers alike in Auburn.
The City of Auburn and Auburn University has teamed up to tackle this issue in light of recent occurrences of people being struck by cars on Magnolia Avenue and College Street.
"It has been a long ongoing relationship between the city and between Auburn, the campus, to look at all forms of safety," said Auburn University President Jay Gogue. "We were concerned in the last year or so. We have had a number of pedestrian accidents and car-related incidents, and so our goal has been to work together to recognize the educational efforts, enforcement efforts and engineering solutions to the problem."
Gogue encourages people to know the rules and comply to traveling safely in Auburn.
Mayor Bill Ham, Gogue and Aubie along with other city and University officials gathered under the toilet-papered trees of Toomer's Corner Monday to introduce the week-long safety campaign.
"We are obviously here to talk about an event that really started in June of '09," Ham said "And that is utilizing some stimulus funds for pedestrian safety."
The campaign is called "Travel With Care" under the slogan "However you go, go safely."
"This is actually a duplicate, just a revamp of some of our past campaigns," said Brandy Ezelle, traffic engineer for the City of Auburn. "This is not anything new to us, but we are just getting a lot more publicity out of it this time due to the recent incidents."
Ezelle said a grant was received in Sept. 2009 and this campaign was set to be in the spring during nice weather when more people are outside.
"We want people to be thinking about safety no matter what mode of transportation they're using," said Susan McCallister, associate director of Auburn University Department of Public Safety and Security.
McCallister also wants students to think about using alternative transportation such as the transits, night security shuttles and bicycling in a safe manner.
"We even have a section on our Web site for other modes of transportation that talks a little bit about skateboards and golf carts," McCallister said. "Trying to educate people about the shared-use paths on campus."
McCallister said any walkway that is 10 feet or wider is considered a shared-use path.
Any non-motorized traffic can use these paths.
"We want bicyclist to use those, but use them with caution," McCallister said. "We don't want them going 35 mph through a crowded concourse, so it's basically common sense."
Improvements have been made with the temporary installation of lights and caution signs at every crosswalk on Magnolia Avenue.
"We had about six accidents in the fall semester of 2009 and we thought this is happening too much and let's do some homework on this," said Ainsley Carry, vice president of Student Affairs. "We thought the lighting could be improved, the signage could be improved and we could do more educational opportunities."
Carry made the point of the large amount of visitors in Auburn on a daily basis who may not be familiar with rules and regulations of a crosswalk.
"It comes to our attention that we need to step up an educational piece," Carry said. "It's one of the hardest conversations in the world to meet with a parent or meet with a family whose son or daughter has been injured in a car accident."
Carry said these accidents are avoidable and cell phones or text messaging seemed to be involved in 90 percent of the accidents.
According to a press release, during the week of the campaign, members of the Auburn Police Division will increase awareness of traffic and safety regulations, which will include visibility, jaywalking and redlight running.
Volunteers will be distributing educational materials and reflective giveaways throughout the week.
"(Police Officers) are going to be doing some handouts on the city streets," Carry said. "Then they are doing these kind of mock citations when they see people crossing the middle of the street inappropriately."
Wednesday, April 7, everyone is encouraged to wear white in observance of those who have been affected by pedestrian, bicycle, transit or vehicular accidents.
For more information visit www.travelwithcareauburn.com.
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