A female graduate student was struck by a car at the intersection of Washington Road and William Street on Monday night, raising old concerns about pedestrian safety on campus.
Public Safety Crime Prevention Specialist Barry Weiser said the student was struck by the front bumper of a car while crossing the street in a crosswalk near Green Hall.
Public Safety and Princeton Borough Police responded to the incident. The student was then transported by the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad to the University Medical Center at Princeton, formerly known as PMC.
The driver of the vehicle was issued a ticket for "failing to yield to a pedestrian at a crosswalk," Weiser said.
The student is the first pedestrian struck since September. There have also been several similar accidents in the last few years.
Last October, two freshmen were struck by a car at the Washington Road crosswalk near Fine Hall.
Princeton Township Police reported then that an average of five pedestrian-related incidents occur every year along Washington Road.
Five of the seven crosswalks on Washington Road are controlled by traffic lights. Only one of the seven crosswalks had traffic lights seven years ago, Weiser said.
The two crosswalks without traffic lights are at William Street, where Monday's incident occurred, and at Fine Hall, site of last October's incident.
Public Safety is discussing a possible solution with the Office of Risk Management and the Facilities Office, Weiser said. "We still have an issue," he said.
In 1998, mindful of the increasingly serious problem on Washington Road, several University departments and the USG banded together to create the Pedestrian Safety Task Force.
The task force focused on ways to improve safety along Washington Road.
One option discussed was creating a pedestrian bridge at the Fine Hall crosswalk, the more dangerous of the two crosswalks without traffic lights.
Associate Director of Public Safety Chuck Nouvel, who has since retired from the University, was quoted in an article in The Daily Princetonian in 1998 as saying that a pedestrian bridge would be built.
Five years later, however, a pedestrian bridge has not been built and pedestrian-related incidents are still relatively frequent.
"The plans are definitely under development," University spokeswoman Patricia Allen said.
Allen said she did not know the name or status of the injured student.
Staff at the University's facilities office were unavailable for comment.
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