Campus police go green
Ryan McGeeney
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Campus police go green with Segways, E-85 cars
University students may notice campus police traveling in new ways this semester, most notably with the use of three new Segway scooters.
The electric-powered units, which cost about $5,000 each, were paid for in part by Student Senate.
Lawrence Police Department officer Matthew Weidl scans passing traffic with a radar gun from his patrol car parked off Massachusetts Street Wednesday night. The LPD is conducting Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) measures though September 1, and will include saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints the evenings of August 23 and 24.
The expenditure, made by the Campus Safety Advisory Board and matched by the University, was in response to an expressed desire by the KU student body for increased safety.
“The idea was to increase the visual presence that KU Public Safety has on campus,” said Student Body Treasurer Alex Torte, Great Falls, Va., junior. “I think students just wanted to feel safer on campus, and I think a police presence does that for them.”
The KU Public Safety Office also has rolled out environmentally friendly patrol vehicles that run on E-85 fuel, according to Capt. Schuyler Bailey of the safety office. E-85 is a gasoline-ethanol mixture that is up to 85 percent ethanol.
Officers with the KU Public Safety Office are making use of an electric car in the evenings, which travels at speeds up to 25 mph and uses no gasoline.
LPD will be more visible early in fall semester
Officers with the Lawrence Police Department will have an increased presence on the city’s streets during the first few weeks of the fall semester. The enforcement effort known as the Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), which began on Aug. 14, will run through Sept. 1. According to Sgt. Bill Cory, the public information officer with the LPD, the purpose of the program is “to put additional officers on the street to concentrate efforts towards traffic enforcement and impaired driver detection.”
It will include “saturation patrols” and sobriety checkpoints on Saturday and Sunday, according to a statement released from the LPD Traffic Division.
The STEP enforcement project was first implemented six years ago. According to the LPD 2007 annual report, there were a total of 85 arrests for OUI/DUI.
Four new stop signs built to improve safety
Four new stop signs have been installed on campus in an effort to improve pedestrian safety and manage traffic entering and exiting campus.
The stop signs are located at the west end of Jayhawk Boulevard near the Chi Omega fountain roundabout; the intersection of Sunflower Road and Sunnyside Avenue; the intersection of Jayhawk Boulevard and 14th Street near the Student Union; and at the north end of Mississippi Street near the entrance to Memorial Stadium.
Public Safety Office reports electronics theft
Between July 28 and Aug. 18, the KU Public Safety Office reported three computers, two digital cameras and assorted scientific research equipment stolen from academic halls on campus. Two of the computers were Apple laptops that were taken from the Dole Human Development Center and Stauffer-Flint Hall and were later returned. With the exception of an Apple iMac reported stolen from the Art and Design building on July 31, none of the thefts coincide with reports of forcible entry, and appear to be a result of a simple failure to secure the items.
Capt. Schyler Bailey said that the series of thefts do not represent an unusual trend. Bailey said that an increase in computer theft was the result of their increased prevalence on campus.
Discussion
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Do our cops really need to use segways? Can't they just walk or ride a bike? What about when they have to arrest someone? How will that work out with a segway? They could have spent our $15000 better- on programs that actually work, or hiring additional security forces. Buying bicycles for campus cops would have been alot cheaper- probably in the neighborhood of $1500.
Those new stop signs at the traffic booths are a joke. I have a feeling they will be gone before winter break- either that, or changed so that they fold up when campus is open. Making all of the buses stop there is crazy- it creates a traffic nightmare in the roundabout. Maybe buses should be allowed to treat it like a yield sign....
You're absolutely right sjschlag, bikes would have been much more cost effective as well as more environmentally friendly. Those $5,000 white elephants still pollute indirectly because all electricity in Lawrence comes from coal burning power plants. And e85 presents a whole new set of problems in the form of agricultural pollution. Not to mention the fact that heaven forbid the police had to actually chase somebody, depending on how in shape they are, they could conceivably be faster on a bike since according to wikipedia a Segway can only go 12.5 MPH. I'm having flashbacks of Gob Bluth.
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