While Largely a Pedestrian Campus, Vehicles and Parking Make Walking Difficult in Some Locations

The Kent Campus is largely a pedestrian campus, despite its linear form.  It’s a mile from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design to Stewart Hall.   The Esplanade helps to unite the south edge of campus and provides excellent wayfinding.  PARTA transit helps connect the campus core to distant parking, Dix Stadium, and the Allerton Sports Complex. 

Yet vehicles intrude into the pedestrian environment in two ways. There are multiple conflict points between pedestrians and vehicles, most prominently along the Esplanade.

The parking that vehicles require also makes walking more difficult by spreading out destinations, and parking damages the character of the campus.  The Kent Campus has no parking garages, and thus surface parking asphalt is spread throughout campus.  The most prominent parking lots are in the front campus in front of Rockwell Hall, north of White Hall along Main Street, and along both sides of Summit Street at the campus’s “front door” at the Student Green. 

The campus has enough parking spaces, but they are not in the locations where campus users want them. The activity of the front campus area generates more parking demand than there is supply.  Expansive areas of parking east of Loop Road go unused much of the time.

Do you find it easy or difficult to move around campus?  Where is it particularly difficult for you to walk?