The city is considering adding more crosswalks to Route 1 to make it safer for pedestrians, including one crosswalk that would increase access to the recently opened Terrapin Station shopping center, College Park City Council members said.
“We are trying to make it more pedestrian-friendly,” said District 3 Councilman Eric Olson. “Clearly the downtown area has some real problems for pedestrians.”
The council is responding in part to a “walkability” study conducted in 2004 by Dave Burden, director of Walkable Communities, a nonprofit group that helps communities “become more walkable and pedestrian-friendly.” Burden cited the lack of crosswalks, poorly structured roundabouts and wide driving lanes as factors that make the road particularly hazardous to pedestrians.
Olson said if the council can obtain official results of the evaluation, it plans to take the results to the State Highway Administration to support the request for more crosswalks.
Terrapin Station, located on Route 1 next to Hartwick Road, currently has no parking for patrons and no crosswalk of its own; the closest existing crosswalk is a block away at Knox Road. As a result, many of the shopping center’s customers end up crossing Route 1 illegally from the parking lot across the road, store owners said.
Junior government and politics major Aaron Cahn said when he and his friends go to the Roly Poly Sandwich Shop in Terrapin Station, they often dart across between traffic breaks.
“We are a running gun kind of crew,” he said.
T-Mobile manager Jonathan Burkey said the city has not approached him about adding more crosswalks, but his company is enthusiastic about the idea.
“I would love to have a crosswalk,” he said. “I have seen students almost get run over trying to get here.”
District 3 Councilman Andrew Fellows said another way the council is trying to make the city pedestrian-friendly is through the addition of a new parking garage where City Hall currently stands. The new garage is slated to provide hundreds of spaces for the city.
To really make the downtown area safer, however, Burden said the city would need to lower the speed limit on Route 1.
