RICHMOND, Va. — Brian Sussman, a supervisor with VCU Police Safety Ambassadors, searched for solutions to protect pedestrians as some students were seen making risky decisions traversing the city campus.
"It made me nervous seeing these kids encroach on vehicles that are still moving through the intersection, and you would have 100 kids here and 100 kids there. It was just swelling like a pool," Sussman said.
The unit, made up of non-sworn civilians, discovered more than 300 students crossed at West Main Street and South Linden Street over 15 minutes to get to their 11 a.m. classes.
"The vehicles had 55 seconds to traverse at this intersection while students only had about 25 seconds. I was able to take that information to the city and I met with one of the lighting engineers and he agreed — let's flip it just for that 15-minute period. Let's flip those lights in favor of the students," Sussman said.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10:45 a.m. and 11 a.m., cars now have to wait longer at intersections to move more students through.
VCU junior Alesa Wilson said the intersections can be tough to navigate.
"Because some people like hang out in the street, so it’s kind of tough sometimes. And then like this intersection where they are driving fast. You see some students be bold and just put their foot out and start walking," Wilson said.
VCU junior Ray Neralla, who commutes to campus, has also seen students taking risks.
"Sometimes what I notice is people don't like waiting, and they just jump the gun and cross, even when cars are coming. I've seen some people cut it really, really close sometimes," Neralla said.
As first reported by VCU News, signal timing was also optimized for pedestrian safety at the intersections of Franklin and Shafer, Franklin and Laurel, and Main and Laurel.
Sussman spent hours hand-counting students crossing various intersections through traffic cameras as an arm of the ONE VCU Master Plan.
"We're here for this university. We’re here for the student body, and we're here to enhance our pedestrian safety and be a part of it," Sussman said.
VCU Police are looking to make similar changes to signals at the medical campus and believe this could work at other busy intersections across the city. Sussman said while he cannot control the actions of students, he can control the safety tools around them.
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