I want to thank you for The Lanthorn’s coverage of the proposed widening of 48th Avenue, the local issue (Allendale/Ottawa County) we used as a case study in my Introduction to Transportation Planning class.

While the semester is nearly over, the road widening project, if pursued as proposed, will alter a major thoroughfare in ways that will not only affect traffic patterns but also the quality of life for the tens of thousands who live and work on the Allendale campus. My students’ investigation of this project raised a number of causes for concern. Among the issues that warrant further scrutiny by the GVSU community are the following:

1) Thousands of students live in housing along 48th Avenue, which is already hostile to walking and biking. Creating a highway (4 to 5 lanes) there will worsen the risk of walking on that span of road and ensure that future students will drive to school instead of walk or ride their bicycles. This is all happening at a time when every health department (state, regional, federal) is emphasizing the dire need for Americans to walk more. The potential savings to society in medical costs and the benefits to a healthy college community are easy to support.

2) A wider road, supporting greater traffic counts is generally a self-fulfilling prophecy. The theory of induced demand says when a road is made wider it will tend to fill with traffic as people choose that route over other less fast-moving routes. More cars and trucks passing along the edge of campus and next to student housing will translate into worse air quality in the region and more contaminants on roadways that drain, ultimately, into the Grand River.

3) While the new version of 48th Avenue might be called a “boulevard” and may have a planted median and some trees and a sidewalk along the side, it will still be a four lane highway with fast-moving cars. Such roads are needed, of course, as one of a variety of ways we get around in our car-dependent society, but it can be argued that a highway should not pass directly through a crowded residential district adjacent to the college itself. GVSU already is hemmed in—separated from Allendale—on one side by a highway (M-45). And M-45, which technically accommodates pedestrians, is not a pleasant place to walk or cross to and from campus.

So what is the alternative to a wider 48th Avenue? Any major road design adjacent to the campus should be part of a larger plan to integrate the design of the campus with the design of the Township of Allendale. So-called town-and-gown collaborations in other places capitalize on the ways communities and their local colleges enrich one another. 48th Avenue might offer more of a pedestrian-friendly, vibrant, college-town street scene, for instance, that would attract tourists to Allendale businesses and future students to the campus.

A fine college campus may be seen as a jewel that, in the proper setting, will shine to greater advantage. Allendale Township the setting for the jewel that is GVSU.

Sincerely,
Patricia Houser, Assistant Professor of Geography and Planning