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LU makes pedestrian safety at Residential Annexes top priority

Liberty University uses two buildings, Residential Annex I and Residential Annex II, both former hotels (one on either side of Odd Fellows Road in Lynchburg), for student housing. On Tuesday, Feb. 3, Liberty student Michael Bryant was hit by a car while walking across Odd Fellows Road between the annexes. Bryant did not have any broken bones and was released from the hospital the same day. He is recovering well and is not expected to have any lasting health issues from the accident.  Another student, Kung Jin Oh, was critically injured last October at the same intersection.  Liberty students, faculty, and staff are asked to continue to pray for both Bryant and Oh during their recoveries.

Liberty has continually encouraged students to ride the free university shuttle between the annexes and Liberty will continue to provide this bus service as long as the annexes are in use.  When Oh was injured, Liberty officials requested that the City of Lynchburg create a crosswalk on Odd Fellows Road and offered to pay for its installation.  Instead, city officials installed warning signs and a new street light so that the intersection was well lighted but indicated to Liberty that they believed a crosswalk could create even more danger in certain circumstances — by giving pedestrians a false sense of security — unless a traffic signal was also installed.  Given the considerable amount of time required to engineer, design, and install a new traffic signal and Liberty’s plans to vacate the annexes in the short term, Liberty officials saw little benefit to pursuing this signalized option.

The university has fast-tracked the construction of its second high-rise residence hall on main campus, Residential Commons II.  It is estimated that the second residence hall will be completed in 12 months compared with the 20-month schedule required for the first high-rise residence hall, Residential Commons I, which opened last fall. Opening Residential Commons II will allow the university to close Annex II in May of this year, permanently resolving the pedestrian safety issue at Odd Fellows Road, and will allow Annex I to be vacated during this calendar year as well.

While expediting the construction schedule is costly, the benefits are great.  Not only will the pedestrian safety issue be resolved, but residence hall students will be moved to the main campus sooner, saving time now lost on commuting between locations, and on-campus housing will be created for Liberty’s projected growth in the fall of 2015.

“The university will be able to provide security, meals, transportation, academic support, athletic and recreational opportunities and other services much more efficiently at the main campus, and there are intangible benefits, as well,” said President Jerry Falwell.  “Studies have shown that students are more likely to graduate when they become involved in extracurricular activities.  Those activities are more readily accessible on the main campus.  When we weighed all the costs and benefits, it was determined that the investment required to expedite construction of the second high-rise residence hall was justified.”

The Liberty University Police Department will continue to monitor the intersection during peak pedestrian traffic times for the rest of the spring semester.

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