UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA — Traffic safety improvements are planned for the area where several University of Central Florida students and other pedestrians have been killed.
Sham Amin’s out for his morning jog. “I run here every morning.”
The UCF student says he likes to jog on campus, but he must first get across the busy Alafaya Trail from his apartment on the other side of the busy road.
“Whenever I’m coming from my place before I start running, I normally walk, I don’t run – I take it as a warm up,” said Amin.
Getting across Alafaya Trail proved deadly on Wednesday night when Florida Highway Patrol troopers say Reuel Buchanan was jogging through traffic and was hit by a car about a mile north of campus. The 21-year-old president of the UCF Omega Psi Phi fraternity lost his life.
Amin was in some of the same classes with Buchanan.
“It’s too early for someone who’s about to graduate college to lose their life. I feel like they have their whole future ahead of them and it’s sad,” said Amin.
Some UCF students have asked for a pedestrian bridge to be built. But when Orange County planners studied traffic and came up with safety improvements, they said a pedestrian bridge would eat up all of the money they have to spend.
The study’s planners say they’d rather take a lot of different measures like expanding crosswalks, adding lighting and constructing fencing to keep students safe.
FHP says most – if not all of the pedestrians killed along Alafaya Trail in recent years – were crossing against traffic that had the right of way.
Amin says the area could use some safety improvements. For now, he’s using everything already in place to make sure he makes it through his daily run – alive.
“When I come here I use the walk button and I always wait for it to turn white – that ensures my safety,” said Amin.
The traffic safety improvements near UCF are in the design process and expected to be put in place in the next two to three years.