Stanford U. Tries to Calm Bike Traffic at ‘Intersection of Death’

White Plaza, near the center of the Stanford U. campus, links the Tressider Union, the bookstore, and other areas.

Stanford University students have reacted coolly to a $4-million overhaul of White Plaza, a campus crossroads where bike traffic had become a major safety issue. The redesign added bike lanes, bike-traffic circles, separate sidewalks for pedestrians, and clearly defined spaces for outdoor events, according to the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily.

But now some students complain that the project has left the plaza cluttered and that concrete blocks added as seating “look like something out of Soviet Russia.”

One student told the newspaper that since the redesign the plaza “may seem more dangerous, because there is a greater possibility of fender benders, but it decreases the chance for full-speed collisions.” Before it was overhauled, some students had referred to the plaza as “the intersection of death” — and that’s without vehicular traffic, which is forbidden on the plaza.

University officials say that “very few” bike accidents have been reported since the plaza reopened. The redesign was preceded by four years of discussions and workshops, at which bike traffic was a constant concern. “It was determined we needed to channel bike traffic,” Greg Boardman, the university’s vice provost for student affairs, told the Daily. “All felt the area was unsafe.”

Mr. Boardman said that another goal of the project was to make the plaza “a destination, not only a thoroughfare,” because it functions as an outdoor campus center for the university.

Bike traffic at Stanford is busier — and scarier, even to longtime bike riders — than at almost any other university campus in the United States, with the possible exception of the University of California at Davis.