When life gives you lemons, make a crosswalk

Two weeks ago, a momentous occasion occurred right here on Gonzaga's campus. The event was so earth-shattering that Dr. Thayne McCulloh, the president of this fine university, found it necessary to personally email all Gonzaga faculty, staff members, undergraduate, graduate and law students to invite them to share in this once-in-a-lifetime event.

In case you didn't get that email, Sue Weitz, vice president for student life, also mentioned the event in one of her undergraduate-wide emails, and it made numerous appearances in Morning Mail.

It was SO BIG that the Mayor of Spokane even took time out of her busy schedule to get some good free publicity courtesy of The Gonzaga Bulletin.

At this point, you may be asking yourself "What was this massive occasion, where was I, and why did I miss it?"

Don't worry, all of your questions are about to be answered. The unveiling of a crosswalk that keeps pedestrians at the same level of relative danger that they were already at; you were in class because the unveiling was conveniently scheduled at 12:15 p.m., and you missed it because nobody actually cared about it. Some people pretended to care about it though, mostly consisting of the GSBA president and some other GSBA members who probably ran unopposed. At least they still get paid … Unfortunately, GSBA was so busy planning the unveiling of the famed crosswalk, they forgot all about the Gonzaga concert. Sorry, everyone, looks like we'll be enjoying Boyz II Men on their reunion tour this year. On the bright side, their booking fee is probably so low that we won't lose tens of thousands of dollars this time around.

Speaking of money, even though crosswalk improvement is definitely the

City of Spokane's responsibility (due to streets being public property), Gonzaga somehow managed to spend an estimated $30,000 on a couple cans of paint, some concrete, and a few flashing lights. We wonder who the lucky freshman is who had to take out student loans in order to come here just so the administration could use that tuition money to fund their pet crosswalk project. But at least that freshman can walk safely from C/M to Marian (a walk that SO many people on campus have to make) free of worry.

This crosswalk is so revolutionary that it is a project five years in the making. That's right, it took us five years to put in one crosswalk, a task so simple that it gets accomplished roughly 7-million times per year in Seattle. If this took five years to accomplish, we won't hold our breath for safety improvements in locations where safety actually has been an issue.

Sharp Avenue may be the worst lit, most heavily crossed street in the nation. We aren't traffic engineers by any means, but we do have years of experience with driving and with darkness, and we know that mixing the two is about as safe as mixing chemical fertilizer, diesel fuel and fire.

There is a lot of talk about how to improve pedestrian safety on Sharp Avenue. The current plan includes narrowing the street to two lanes and adding a bike lane. Solid plan — let's shove the same amount of cars into a smaller space while adding untrained helmetless bike-riding students who used to be on the sidewalk — into the flow of traffic. That ought to keep students safe.

We are ecstatic that the 4 percent of Gonzaga's student body who actually use the new crosswalk on a regular basis are finally out of harm's way. The seizure-inducing light show put on every time they cross the road is sure to instantly bring any motorist to a complete halt. But as Dr. McCulloh said himself,  "Our   students   as   pedestrians … are co-responsible for safety," so don't forget to look both ways. Even if the driver has noticed the barrage of flashing lights coming down Hamilton, if they still aren't slowing down, it's highly unlikely they will be stopping.

We are grown-ups now, and it's not that difficult to determine whether that Odyssey barreling down Hamilton or Sharp is going to get to the crosswalk before you get across it. As college students we shouldn't need an overpriced walkway in order to traverse four lanes. When Gonzaga and Spokane actually do something that really increases our safety we'll be there, next to the mayor, for the unveiling ceremony (but mostly for the free cookies — which looked far superior to anything Sodexo has ever provided us).

Until then, we can all enjoy and laugh about the fact that Gonzaga made such a hullabaloo about one of the worst uses of $30,000 in the history of humankind (besides booking Jay Sean). We only hope that Gonzaga University continues to provide us with such an abundance of topics to write articles on.

Stay safe, Zags.