photo via Haley Krus
Bradley University Police Department is teaming up with Kaboom! this semester to bring attention to a growing issue on Bradley’s campus: jaywalking.
Throughout the month of March, Bradley students may have seen Kaboom! dressed in a crossing guard uniform keeping pedestrians at the Campustown intersection safe.
According to Lt. Sean Savage, the jaywalking issue was brought to the department’s attention during the fall semester when police began hearing from area residents, students and local businesses.
“We had received a lot of complaints that resulted in us doing a study on the amount of jaywalking that happens, and it consisted of about a month worth of sitting out [on popular intersections] and just seeing how often it actually happens,” Savage said. “What we found in the study is that it was happening a lot more than the complaints had even suggested.”
Savage said in just two weeks, BUPD observed over 400 jaywalking violations on campus, an increase from previous years.
“Initially, we wanted to address [the intersection of] University [Street] and St. James [Street], [which] is where we had a majority of the complaints,” Savage said. “When Baker [Hall] moved over to Campustown, it really spiked the foot traffic over here, so that’s really where most of the study came from.”
After completing the study, BUPD and Bradley’s Department of Marketing and Publications came up with a three-phase plan to raise awareness and eventually reduce jaywalking on campus.
The first part of the campaign was made to educate and inform the campus on the issue and the specifics about jaywalking.
“What we found just doing a little bit of research for the information phase was people didn’t know a lot about [jaywalking]. There were a bunch of myths that were out there floating around like if you get hit by a vehicle as a student while you’re here on campus, you get free tuition. That is completely not true,” Savage said. “The more we looked into it, the more we just found out people didn’t know a lot about it.”
In the next few weeks, BUPD will move into the second and third phases of their campaign where they will gradually begin ticketing students for offenses. However, Savage said he hopes they do not have to prioritize jaywalking as a campus issue.
“If we cannot cut down on this [through education], then it’s going to be strict enforcement, [but] I believe it’s in everybody’s best interest that one of our priorities as a police department is [not] having to enforce jaywalking,” Savage said. “We don’t mind enforcing it, but it’s a priority that we don’t have those kinds of concerns around … We [need to] focus efforts on other places that have significant impact on this university whereas jaywalking should not have the impact it’s currently having.”
While officers will be issuing citations in the future, Savage said he does not want to reach that point.
“The last thing we want to do is start handing out tickets for jaywalking,” Savage said. “We realize it’s a problem, and we realize we need to address that problem, and we don’t think that enforcement is the only way to address it. That’s the purpose of the first two phases is to inform the community of the problem that we’re seeing … and make sure it doesn’t continue.”
