It’s a Thursday night, the latest episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” just ended and I’m speeding down E. Haggard Avenue in my little Honda Accord, having left the comfort of my apartment and the warm glow of the television set to tackle two papers and two chapters of reading at Club Belk.

As I pass Provence town homes on my left and the mysterious meat factory on my right, I’m hardly focused on the drive or the road itself – my mind is churning with assignment deadline reminders and plans for the most celebratory of all evenings in a college student’s week – Friday.

But my concentration on the future crumbles once I notice the residents of Burlington and Elon making the same trip down Haggard Avenue. Some are students, a few are middle-aged, most appear under the age of 18.

The difference between our journeys is that mine is made by car while most make the trek between on-campus and off-campus by foot or by bicycle.

As I’m nearing a middle-aged biker clothed in jeans and a black sweatshirt, his shopping bags swinging from his handle bars as he pedals hard to reach the next streetlight past the Crest and just before Oak Hill, I also notice the narrow, barely-existent strip of asphalt sandwiched between the edge of my tires and his left foot. Is that supposed to be a bike path? I tap my foot on the break to examine the equally narrow portion of the road between the man’s right foot and someone’s front yard, and confirm my answer as a negative.There is no bike path on E. Haggard Avenue.

It’s at least 500 additional feet before a thick block of concrete appears on my left. The man reaches a sidewalk. From my rearview mirror, I watch as he jumps to the opposite side of the road when the sidewalk ends and then picks up across Haggard Avenue, where it soon becomes campus property and blends with the university sidewalk.

I find myself thinking: where was that sidewalk just a half a mile earlier? Why did it start here and not in front of the Crest where I first noticed this man?

As Elon students, we pride ourselves on being active, visible members of our university and its surrounding community. Many of us ride our bikes to and from campus and jog that same path when we’re not class-bound.

And many more of us walk to class. Often, we walkers become runners long after classes have ended for the day, when the campus buildings are aglow and the car lights and apartment spotlights are all that keep us from being swallowed in the darkness.

In many ways, we’re no different from the man in jeans and a black sweatshirt. Our destinations may be different, but our journeys are strikingly the same. We’re all the pedestrians that our 2,000-pound vehicles narrowly avoid each day.

Nine off-campus apartment and town home complexes line E. Haggard Avenue. The recent development of many of these buildings (two were completed in the summer of 2006 and one in the spring of 2007), no more than a short two miles from campus, has resulted in increased foot and bike traffic in the town of Elon.

Increased traffic needs space to receive it. It needs a platform to take the brunt of its impact. It needs sidewalks and bike paths.

“Students and townspersons need to be able to walk around our community in a safe manner,” said Gerald Whittington, vice president for business, finance and technology.

Elon Town Manager Mike Dula recognizes the need for these pedestrian travel ways, but believes that for a need to become an action, there must first be careful research.

“We had several areas that we thought we needed to look at, and rather than just pick and choose randomly, we thought we would do a comprehensive look at everything,” Dula said.

Dula and a committee from the town of Elon are working with Town Planner Sean Tesner, as well as Elon University, to conduct a study that began in September. The study should produce recommendations for the most economically-wise and efficient bike paths and sidewalks in the town.

“We at Elon University are gratified that the town of Elon has agreed to work with us on this important initiative and look forward to having a real master plan for the development of these sidewalks, bike paths and lighting improvements,” Whittington said.

Until the study concludes, the complaints from Elon students and town residents will continue pouring into the municipal building. Residents complain of unsafe traveling conditions on E. Haggard Avenue, Lebanon Avenue, Trollinger Avenue and Oak Avenue, Dula said.

As I turn onto O’Kelley Drive and the bright lights from McMichael Science Building flood my dashboard, I’m less cautious of pedestrian traffic. I’ve stopped glancing back to locate and confirm the safety of the man with the shopping bags – there are sidewalks here.

Student: Sarah McGlinchey, Class of ’08 - 12/05/07