Last week, Project Manager Rod Szwelicki and Director of Transportation Engineering Steve O’Neill shared insights on pedestrian-focused campus design at the Southern New England Chapter of APPA (SNEAPPA) Spring Meeting. With more than 30 years of combined experience with campus design, Rod and Steve presented alongside Kaki Martin, landscape architect from Klopfer Martin Design Group—a firm with whom VHB is collaborating on several pedestrian design projects at Connecticut College.
Looking at campuses through a broad lens, Rod and Steve discussed how schools and universities are moving away from car-centered grids and becoming more people-focused, pedestrian-friendly multimodal ecosystems.
The presentation touched on VHB’s work to enhance the pedestrian experience at Connecticut College, including the Crozier-Plex Pedestrian Connector Project. This initiative will remove the roadway and parking lot between the College Center at Crozier-Williams (the “Cro”) and the North Complex (the “Plex”)—two buildings at the heart of campus. VHB is providing civil engineering design and permitting support for the project, which will more effectively link the Cro and the Plex and redistribute parking throughout the campus.
“The people-first approach to pedestrian design can improve safety, sustainability, and mobility, all of which helps schools create a stronger campus identity,” said Rod.
For more than a decade, VHB has been collaborating with colleges and universities in Connecticut to reimagine campus design and create open, accessible, and multimodal spaces. We have partnered with Wesleyan University to support their campus-wide revitalization efforts, including providing field surveying, site and civil design, transportation planning, parking analysis, and local and state permitting.
VHB also supported the University of Connecticut with designing the Northwest Science Quad Roundabout, which has transformed an intersection beset by congestion and pedestrian safety issues into a safe and smoothly flowing critical link to the science district.
Learn how VHB works with a full array of private and public institutions—from master planning through design and construction.
