{"id":3090,"date":"2019-09-23T15:21:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T15:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=3090"},"modified":"2019-09-23T15:21:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T15:21:33","slug":"night-safety-for-pedestrians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2019\/09\/23\/night-safety-for-pedestrians\/","title":{"rendered":"Night Safety for Pedestrians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Dexter Kowalski, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of us like to be afraid. Sure, the occasional horror\nmovie or roller coaster are good to get your fix of adrenaline, but you know\nthat in the end you are going to be ok. That isn\u2019t always the case when you are\nsimply walking through your neighborhood, especially at night. No matter where you\nare going, you should be able to feel safe and secure in your travels. One of\nthe main contributors to the uneasy feeling you get when walking around on\nstreets at night is the lack of adequate lighting. The only streetlights create\ndeep shadows that can make a perfectly safe side of the street seem like a back\nalley in a rough part of town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lamps outside of Hopkins Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The lighting on campus itself is quite good. There is an\nample number of lamps, placed quite closer together so that the majority of the\nsidewalks are in the light. The blue emergency poles are a reminder that help is\nright around the corner on campus. That being said, most of the main roads and\nfoot paths on the academic core do not share the same lighting issues that the\nsurrounding areas have. Specifically, I have identified two areas of interest,\nthe first of which being the area to the North-East of the academic core, and the\nsecond being the West Carmack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dim street lights on north camus<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As you make your way North into the University Campus area,\nit seems as though the lights were just turned off. There is noticeable decrease\nin street lighting once you head into the city\u2019s jurisdiction. Most of this neighborhood\nis home to students that go to The Ohio State University, and commute to and from\ncampus everyday. I took a survey of individuals that live in the area and found\nthat 45.7% only walked one to two nights per week and 39.1% walked 3-4 nights\nper week. Although this seems low, it is the most used form of transportation,\nfollowed by the bike where 78.3% of people responded that they never ride their\nbike during the night. This has a negative correlation with how safe people felt.\nWhen asked how safe each mode of transportation felt, 45.6% of participants\nresponded with a one or two, one being feeling the least safe; where with the bike\n69.9% of the participants responded with a three, four or five. It started to\nbecome clear to me that the issue was the feeling of safety when walking, and for\nmedium range commutes. Out of all of my participants, the majority of nightly commutes\ntook an average of 11-15 minutes, which can be quite a long time to walk alone\nin the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat down with Courtney Falato (the Smart Cities\nRelationship Director) and Beth Snoke\n(Director of Transportation and Traffic management at Ohio State) to discuss\nthe issue and see what the University and the city has been doing to try to\nimprove the near campus commute safety. Something I found interesting was they\nthere is already a shuttle service available to students that live close to\ncampus, and the first five dollars of the ride is subsidized. This same service\nis looking to be rolled out soon using autonomous vehicles. What I found more interesting\nis that there is a geofenced area in the off-campus neighborhoods that the\nUniversity is sponsoring this service for, which means that there is room for\nthe University to help make change in the surrounding area around campus to improve\nnight commuting safety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I also find interesting is\nthat people still feel unsafe even in relatively crime free areas. Although there\nis less violent crime that happens on the north side of campus, the feeling of\nbeing unsafe in the environment. There doesn\u2019t seem to be a correlation to how\nsafe the area is and how safe it is perceived to be. This means that making someone\nfeel safer won\u2019t necessarily decrease the chance of crime that could occur. But\nwhat this does mean is that by increasing the feeling of safety, there would be\nmore people on the streets later at night, which means there are more witnesses\nto any crime that might take place, therefore decreasing the chance of crime. As\nthe saying goes, there are safety in numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second point of interest in the\nWest Campus Carmack lot. This is a massive parking lot located approximately miles\nfrom the academic core. A large portion of the long distance commuters have to\npark at Carmack five, and then take the bus to main campus. If these\nindividuals have to stay later, they have to wait outside for the bus and then\nget dropped off, far past sunset, at one of two available bus stops. This lot\nis becoming more crowded than it used to since the medical campus construction\npushed all of the parking for Wexner Medical Center employees to the West Campus\nCarmack. With increased traffic, there is a higher chance that a pedestrian trying\nto make it to one of the scarce bus stops could be hit by a tired driver early\nin the morning or late at night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carmack 5 at night<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Close up of one of the Carmack lamps<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

 The lighting fixtures that are in the lot are\ndim, and have a quite a lot of fall off as the light gets farther from the lamp.\nThis can create confusing shadows and reflections off of the asphalt, especially\nwhen the surface is wet and make it hard to see people walking across the lot. Increasing\nthe general luminance of the lot would solve some of these basic problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another issue with the safety of Carmack\nfive, is that in the next decade or so the entire area will be different, and\nthe lot will no longer be there. According to Beth Snoke, \u201cthere\u2019s out but there\nis new in\u201d in regard to the parking lot redistribution. New drawings for these\nplans have already been laid out as part of Ohio States future development plan,\nand it will be interesting to see what the proposed plans are. I am hoping to\nfollow up with Snoke and Falato soon to get more in-depth data and information that\nthey can provide that will help more fully understand the commuters on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a very human need and want\nto feel safe in your surroundings. Unfortunately, some of the most populated\nareas on and around campus are lacking the comfort that a community should\nprovide. The dim and sometimes non-existent lighting on residential streets\nmake room for criminals to hide away and strike late at night. If commuters can\nmake it to the parking lot safe to park their car, does it really matter if\nthey can\u2019t get to campus without fearing for their safety? Getting to and form\ncampus should be a pleasant thing to do and not a burden, and I think that this\nis a problem that should be taken more seriously and would increase the overall\nwell being of the university. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dexter Kowalski, 2019 None of us like to be afraid. Sure, the occasional horror movie or roller coaster are good to get your fix of adrenaline, but you know that in the end you are going to be ok. That isn\u2019t always the case when you are simply walking through your neighborhood, especially at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,33],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured","7":"category-focus-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3116,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions\/3116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}