Thursday October 25, 2001

Officials concerned about safety of crossing Broadway

As of Monday, SafeRide will extend its boundaries from East Tenth Street to East Broadway Boulevard, but will not be taking students to Safeway as announced yesterday.

Because of confusion over where the new SafeRide boundaries lie, SafeRide trips to Safeway, 1940 E. Broadway Blvd., may not come until a later date, if at all.

Dean of students Melissa Vito approved the boundaries, under the impression that vans could drive on Broadway, but would not be allowed to go south of Broadway, including making trips to Safeway, Vito said.

However, Allison Jones, a senator in the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, said she thought extending the boundary to Broadway meant that SafeRide vans would be permitted to visit Safeway.

Jones had prepared fliers - which were not approved in last night's ASUA meeting - advertising the extended boundaries to students without transportation to grocery stores.

"SafeRide's newly extended boundaries allow you to travel to Broadway, and you can even shop for groceries at the Safeway, grocery store at Broadway and Campbell," Jones' flier read.

Where the SafeRide van will go, and what the boundaries mean is up for debate at this point, said SafeRide director Craig Haubrich.

One consideration is that SafeRide assumes more liability when boundaries are extended, Haubrich said.

The service will not, however, be taking students to Safeway on Monday or dropping off students who have the intention of going to Safeway at North Campbell Avenue just south of Broadway.

Crossing Broadway is too much of a hazard, Haubrich said.

Haubrich is concerned that SafeRide could become a shopping service instead of an escort service for students if transportation to Safeway was advertised, although he said he does not oppose service to Safeway.

"If we make (SafeRide) a grocery store service, I don't want that," Haubrich said. "That's marketing us as more of a service of convenience instead of safety."

Haubrich added that because he rarely sees students walking at night with bags of groceries, he assumes they have shared rides with friends, or found other ways of buying their groceries.

Also, Haubrich is concerned that it would take longer to respond to calls from students asking for rides if the boundaries were extended to Safeway. And buying more vans or cars to transport more students and keep response time quick is not an option because SafeRide does not have the budget, Haubrich said.

One possible answer to the question of where to draw the lines would be to extend the boundary to a block past Broadway, said ASUA Sen. Doug Hartz.

SafeRide has a record-breaking number of riders both Monday and Tuesday nights, as a result of the assault on two students near campus last Thursday, Haubrich said.

In other matters, a new campus-wide survey asking how students, faculty and staff use computers across campus could lead to an increase in the number of computers available, or in other changes in computing on campus.

Anyone who wishes to participate in the survey can visit itc.arizona.edu for more information.

ASUA President Ray Quintero also announced two upcoming events.

One program would help students who are having mental or emotional problems find a preliminary description of their problems, and a place to go for help.

ASUA is launching a campaign to register students to vote, and encourage them to write their legislators to ask that university budget cuts be kept to 4 percent.