By SHANNON O. WELLS
“The landscape of risk to pedestrians in Oakland is dauntingly complex,” David Salcido, chair of the Senate Campus Utilization, Planning and Safety committee, told Faculty Assembly at its Jan. 15 meeting.
Salcido gave an update on discussions the committee had in the wake of the Dec. 5 death of pedestrian Jessie Maroney, a member of the housekeeping staff at the Starzl Biomedical Science Towers. She was struck by a box truck around 5:45 a.m. as she crossed Darragh Street near Terrace.
The city has already made some changes along the Terrace Street corridor where there have been two other pedestrian vs. vehicle fatalities in the past five years. Pitt said it commissioned an independent traffic and safety study of the corridor last year to assess and identify potential improvements to the area, and hopes to release it near the end of January.
Salcido noted it’s the second time in the past year the committee met regarding an accidental pedestrian death on campus. The other was after a pedestrian was killed on May 3, 2024, near the Petersen Events Center when a large metal cylinder rolled off the construction site for Pitt’s new Arena and Sports Performance Center and struck her near DeSoto and Terrace streets.
The CUPS committee, who were joined by officials from public safety, facilities and campus planning, reached several conclusions at its meeting, Salcido said, about risks and safety.
“Every intersection, every sidewalk, every street, every vehicle driver, every day, conditions are all different. The responsible parties for each of those can differ, as can the stakeholders influencing their change in the legal landscape for effective change,” he said.
“The safety apparatus at Pitt — the people, processes, infrastructure — are robust and necessarily complex. And if you know that or not, they pervade every aspect of our working and learning lives,” he said, noting that as CUPS chair, he gets to “see a little more detail on these mechanisms than is typical. So I feel it’s important to come to a discussion of an accident in our community with recognition of the depth and dedicated efforts of our (safety-related teams).
“That said, the purview and capabilities of this apparatus have limits. Pitt does not directly control all the factors. … It does not own the streets and cannot dictate how people drive and walk,” Salcido said. “However, Pitt is a major stakeholder in Oakland, the city and the state, that can and should influence improvements to the pedestrian infrastructure that thousands of our students, staff and faculty use every day, at all hours and all conditions.”
The University, he added, “can and should” be an active partner in advocating for safety outside of this direct purview. “And as we experience in the committee, we've learned that there are attempts to do that.”
Safety is a shared governance issue. Pedestrian safety is part of that. Shared governance means all of us — students, staff, faculty, everyone — supporting the success and safety of our institution,” he said. “At the ground level, information from Pitt pedestrians about dangerous conditions must get reported so actions can be taken.
Salcido stressed the importance of reporting safety concerns such as intersections that are not well controlled or accurately signed.
“One of the things I really want to know in this respect … is how many near misses are there at our intersections?” he asked. “We know about fatalities, but how many non-fatal accidents are there? Data like this can inform and influence change if we have the data. At a higher level, the assembly, Staff Council, the unions, student government have to elevate (and) amplify issues as they arise, which is what we're doing right now.”
For the committee’s final point, Salcido stressed that pedestrians simply must be vigilant.
“Regardless of everything else, treat every intersection like a threat to your life, because every single one is a threat, here and pretty much everywhere,” he said. “Treat every sidewalk like a street, because at least from my office window, there's likely to be someone driving an electric scooter at what seems like road speeds on the sidewalk. … The persistence of that situation is a real problem.”
Tom Songer, assistant professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health, asked Salcido to clarify that, in the case of scooters and bicycles on sidewalks, pedestrians still have the right of way.
“There's some basic rules that are out there that have been around for a long time that are (not being recognized),” he said. “Part of that's on our own, and having communication and awareness amongst faculty, staff and students. But a lot of it's out of our control, as you mentioned.”
Of the fatalities involving pedestrians in the last five years, Songer noted, “not all, but quite a few have involved outside entities who are not typically on this campus on a regular basis. And I think recognizing the complex pedestrian nature of this environment is not being communicated to these outside entities.
“I think that's a really important part that we need to have as we move forward with contracting and other delivery and other types of (transportation) systems that are involved in the integration of the University.”
Melanie Scott, vice chair for research in the Department of Surgery, asked if there's been a discussion about the use of cameras at some of the intersections, “because I know that a lot of the cars will run the red lights. They'll just go through a few seconds, five seconds, after (the stoplight’s) already turned red,” she said. “And I wonder, if that's been considered, they might also be able to provide you data.”
Other Faculty Assembly news
UCIS search: Senate Council President Robin Kear said four faculty members out of 11 candidates were elected to serve on the search committee for director of the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) — Erica Owen, associate dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs; Elizabeth Oyler, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures; Mrinalini Rajagopalan, associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture; and John Stoner, teaching professor in the Department of History and a Faculty Assembly member.
English language proficiency policy: The decommissioning of University Policy AC 07, Assessment of English Language Proficiency for Admission, which is set to be replaced with a unit-level policy through the Office of the Provost, was available for public comment through Dec. 16.
Kear said the Educational Policies committee “was satisfied with the argument made by the Office of the Provost to permit greater flexibility and be able to adjust English-language testing (and) would be better handled as an academic regulation rather than an official policy.”
“And given that their committee has discussed the fate of the English Language Institute,” she added, “they appreciate the provost’s commitment to ensure robust practices for assessing English language efficiency and competency among our students and our teaching students, and providing support systems for additional English language support.”
Noting that the Office of the Provost has been involved in approximately 30 decommissioned policies, Kear said as the office updates those into academic regulations, “they have been engaging with our shared governance bodies … as they develop those. We are confident that will continue, including with this commission. So if anyone has any questions, just let me know.”
Senate Plenary: Kear also announced that the topic of the annual Senate Plenary on March 11 in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room will be “Academic Freedom in the Classroom: Complex Topics, Institutional Support and Possible Strategies.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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