When a city is built, a growing population is anticipated and sidewalks are built so that people may walk along to wherever they need to go. Binghamton University is a city. With a growing student population that will swell to 20,000 students by 2020, BU is a mini-city thriving with people forced to walk through narrowed streets that the administration has been taking away in recent months.

Alongside the Hinman Community, the administration has, over the last few months, torn out the sidewalk in favor of planting grass to force pedestrians to only cross by the Student Wing. The argument for eliminating the sidewalk was not that the elimination of various crossing points alongside the Hinman community would make traffic flow more smoothly, but that pedestrians are at a lower risk of injury. Installing speed tables and clarifying roads are a positive step in ensuring safety. Eliminating sidewalks is not.

Last winter, as the first part of the sidewalk from the Hinman Library to Hughes Hall was pulled out of the ground, students were found unsafely walking on the the snow-covered grass, sliding around, as many were too unconvinced to cross over to the other side of the street when the sidewalk coming from College-in-the-Woods ended. When the snow became too much, students like myself began walking in the street, creating unsafe conditions for walkers and cars.

While a small roped fence exists around the grassy part of the former sidewalk this year, it is not unthinkable that they may fall over and be forgotten. It is something we have seen time and time again as winter comes and the tour groups dissipate. Students will begin climbing upon the former sidewalk and crossing in the middle of the street — they will be walking in the street when the snow grows to a height too tall and is no longer cleaned by the snow blowers and be placed in the same unsafe circumstances that were sought to be avoided by the elimination of sidewalks.

I believe the sidewalks should be brought back. They should be installed, on both sides, like they are alongside the Newing and Dickinson Communities, with a small buffer with a chain link fence separating the road from the sidewalk. It has created safe walkways where there is little concern for people crossing in the wrong spot — few ever want to climb over the chained-rope fence. I cannot understand why this system cannot be replicated in different spots on campus.

Cities create density and growth by creating walkways, not limiting them. Safety comes in many ways, yet the elimination of sidewalks cannot be one of them — especially when the population of those setting foot on campus on a day-to-day basis will swell to numbers that the campus was not originally intended for. Sidewalks had been added there before for a reason and to take them away is to ignore their original purpose entirely. Creating designated spots to cross on campus goes a long way in easing car congestion, yet little to ease the congestion of people. If the administration wants to add more people, it needs to add more sidewalks.