Residents discuss Darwin Avenue road changes
Residents of Darwin Avenue, located behind the Logan LDS Institute Building met Wednesday to discuss road changes that have occured this fall.
The residents have been required to find alternative routes of travel when heading south on 800 East due to construction closure of Champ Drive for the new housing and parking facilities.
A public meeting held Wednesday, helped to vocalize the concerns residents of Darwin Avenue have, Darrell E. Hart, assistant vice president of facilities at Utah State University, said.
With the closure to Champ Drive, the only access to Darwin Avenue is from 700 North, which has a cement barrier preventing left turns from being made onto Darwin when headed west on 700 North. The residents living on the street have to drive west on 700 North to 700 East and perform a U-turn to access Darwin Avenue, said Darell Hart, Utah State University assistant vice president of facilities. Logan City plans to break the barrier to allow left turns sometime before winter, Hart said.
Roger Jones, who owns four buildings on Darwin Avenue, said he is concerned the single access to the road may make it unsafe or prevent future development to make it a high-density area.
“If I want to build a high-rise in the future, the city might say they can’t allow it because of zoning issues,” Jones said, “or the university may oppose it also.
Jones said in addition to the students who live on Darwin Avenue, there is also an elderly couple, Guy and Joyce Cardon, and they are concerned because the current situation is very difficult for older drivers.
After construction is complete, Champ Drive, south of the Institute Building, will be turned into a walking plaza, which will be weight bearing enough for an emergency vehicle to access Old Main and other buildings to the south of it, said Ron Godfrey, USU vice president for business and finance.
Godfrey said he estimates there are approximately 8,000-10,000 students who walk between the student center and the LDS Institute building and it is not safe to have cars traveling along there.
“One of these days, somebody is going to die,” Godfrey said.
There have already been numerous accidents along the section that has been closed, Godfrey said, but there haven’t been any deaths and USU will not wait until one occurs for something to be done.
Some of the students in attendance at the meeting said they were concerned USU is building additional housing while tuition is already rising and there are other large projects such as the new library under construction at USU.
“When we can’t even fill up the dorms, why are we building it?” said Katie Holmes, a student who lives on Darwin Avenue.
The building of the new facilities will not cause an excess of beds because Mountain View and Valley View towers may be renovated and converted into offices for faculty at USU, Godfrey said.
Hart also said the other projects on campus have been funded by private sources or other outside sources and do not come out of the same budget as the housing and parking facilities.
Holmes said she feels the university is not taking the Darwin Avenue residents’ concerns seriously and the university officials have their minds made up already, but hopes that more residents will take more action to have the issue addressed.
-cmoffitt@cc.usu.edu