Devin Lusby and Cory Conner are two Everett Community College students who want to help their fellow students avoid getting hit by a car while hoofing it around campus.
They’re concerned about one intersection in particular, where a popular sidewalk ends at the edge of campus and where there’s no crosswalk to usher the students safely across the street.
While the other students in their project management class are writing code or trying to fix computers, these two computer information systems majors are trying to puzzle out a way to get a crosswalk built.
They want a crosswalk on Tower Street just up the hill and west of Broadway. They’d also like the city to lower the speed limit to 10 mph from 25 mph.
“There have been a number of near accidents (at that intersection),” Lusby said.
The duo has to find out whether the land is on college or city property, then convince the owner to allow the crosswalk.
EvCC will install it if it’s on the college’s property, and the city is willing to consider it if it’s on the city’s property.
“I think they’re doing an excellent job,” said George Olson, the college’s director of campus security. “They’re doing a lot of solid research on this.”
Olson said the pair is doing the work he would normally have to do, from estimating the crosswalk’s cost to determining ownership of the land to picking the best spot to paint the crosswalk on the street.
The project has piqued the city’s interest too.
“We’d be happy to look at something like that,” said Ryan Sass, the city’s engineer.
For Lusby, it’s a chance to get some real-world experience he can take with him when he leaves college.
“This is the first time I’ve taken on something where I’m responsible for something that could save people’s lives,” Lusby said.
If they do their job well, they might just save a life or two and that’s sure to earn them an “A” on their project.
Car pool lanes revisited
Question: Last week’s answer about which vehicles with trailers can use the carpool lane was confusing, so we decided to make another run at answering the question.
Answer: Pickup trucks, vans or other personal vehicles with trailers (Rental moving trailers and travel trailers included) are allowed to use the carpool lane as long as they have two or more people. Except for buses, motor homes (with or without trailers) and fifth-wheel trailers, vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of more than 10,000 pounds are not allowed in the carpool lane.
Owners of vehicles with a gross weight over 10,000 pounds (usually larger than a pick-up truck) are specially licensed and are annually charged gross weight fees by the state of Washington.
Leslie Forbis, carpool lane operations engineer for the state Department of Transportation
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