Frank Adams
Contributing Writer
Beall Avenue has an interesting place on this campus. It is used every day by every student, whether walking to class, going to get food, sauntering to a party, or driving to get Chipotle, you really can’t go anywhere without going through Beall Ave. There have been big issues with the presence of such a popular street in the middle of a college such as students being hit by cars, catcalling of college students from cars, and cars not stopping and allowing students to cross on the crosswalk. For an area with this kind of foot traffic, it is inconvenient and sometimes scary to cross Beall Avenue despite the 25 mph speed limit and the series of crosswalks that the College has put up and down the street. People might read what I’ve just written and agree but think that we are doing all that we can do to try and make Beall as safe as we can for all the students. And to those people, I say think bigger.
I think the College of Wooster should try and find a way to make Beall Avenue into just college property, and ban cars from the road. This is not to keep cars off the campus, and any changes that need to be made to accommodate parking lots, emergency vehicles and such would be made. If Wooster had total control of Beall Ave, we could use that power to create a small-scale transport system to help people get from the top of campus to the bottom at Schoolhouse (and maybe even all the way to downtown). To utilize the slope that Beall Ave already has, I was thinking that a ski lift sort of machine would be helpful, where students and community members would use a gravity powered roller coaster that they could control the break on to stop wherever they want to go on Beall Ave. Then those carts would be put into the ski-lift, or Costco-shopping-cart-escalator-thing and people could get on them for the ride up. Now in the winter months, it would be best to have a cover and heater inside of these carts. This would also help update Wooster’s old van and golf cart fleet which need help. It would also give students without cars an easy way to access the downtown area and go grocery shopping at Drugmart or Towne Market. Besides allowing for this cart and ski-lift idea, we could also use the rest of Beall Avenue as a park/garden/green space where students could destress and enjoy student-run gardens run up and down the avenue.
Although the residential quad is a great large space which many people use for a variety of reasons, it is placed on the northern part of campus making it a long uphill walk for many on south campus. Now, if all of Beall were a park, students would have a much more central place to meetup and hangout, maybe a picnic. It would also provide an opportunity to increase the current gardening class that Wooster offers.
There is also a positive correlation between being in green spaces and improved mental health. Obviously there are a lot of holes in my plan, but on a serious note I want people on this campus to try reimagining for themselves in what ways Wooster’s campus could physically be changed to create a better atmosphere.
