EDITOR'S NOTE: The incorrect version of today's editorial ran in today's edition of the Daily News. The correct version has been posted online.
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Class is in five minutes and you're speed walking down the west side of McKinley Avenue. You get to the Teachers College and realize you have to dart across the street to the Arts and Communication Building.
It's noon and traffic is at its peak - not an easy job to negotiate around speeding vehicles as they whip around the road's curves and brick-layered contours.
Luckily you have an oasis in the middle of the McKinley mayhem to protect you as you wait for traffic to pass by.
Ball State University installed the median courtesy of the McKinley Project.
Much like the stretch of McKinley south of Riverside Avenue, we didn't have the luxury of a roadway island four years ago.
Instead, those of us who were here were left to fend for ourselves in the middle of the road without the protective bubble of concrete and mortar.
The construction has made campus safer for pedestrians, but the project - the median especially - has encroached on another group's territory: - bicyclists.
Before the project began in 2005, McKinley Avenue had a turn lane instead of a concrete and brick median. The extra asphalt provided a buffer zone for cars to swerve around cyclists. That buffer zone has disappeared, leaving impatient drivers with the option of clipping close to bikes as they pass.
Because of this, bikers pedalling along McKinley are left with the option of navigating through an obstacle course of pedestrians on the sidewalk. That doesn't sound too safe either.
The McKinley Project is about to head into its third phase. So far, the construction has made walking to class safer for pedestrians, and campus is more aesthetically pleasing than it once was. As pedestrian safety has been enhancedenchanced, bicycles safety has been hindered.
Before the university begins chipping away at the pavement for the next phase, it needs to consider whom it is hindering by helping others.
Travel has changed since the project began three years ago. More people are leaving their cars in the driveway and using scooters and bicycles to spare some change at the pump. Other departments at Ball State have begun to accommodate this, such as the recently added scooter parking spots around campus.
If Ball State wants to accommodate the safety of everyone, then it at least needs to consider what it will take to protect those on the road with two wheels.
The medians might be safer for pedestrians and prettier to look at it than the pothole-laden road McKinley once was, but pushing cyclists and cars into close quarters on the street with one another isn't any safer.
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