The Lucinda Avenue extension is now open. The opening ceremony Wednesday was held at the rain location at Stevenson Tower South without the official ribbon cutting due to the weather. The street west of Stadium Drive is ready for cars and buses to use. The gates blocking access will be taken down some time before the end of the week.
Brad Hoey, Director of Campus Communications, called it a historic moment. "We have for the first time in more than fifty years a direct path to the far west end of campus." He said this was one of many endeavors of the re-envisioned campus and hopes to see more projects come to life.
NIU President Doug Baker said students complained about the difficulty of getting from the west side of the campus to the east side of campus. They were debating what to do, and Douglas Hall lost. "It was a building that was old and tired and near the end of its life, (Baker said). "It didn't have accessibility the way it needed to have accessibility, and it really made a lot of sense to take it down and put this road through for easy egress up and down." Baker said Lucinda Avenue kept coming up in campus discussions, so it was a project worth considering. Students can now get across campus in a little over ten minutes. Final plans are underway for an express Huskie Bus Line route to run every half hour down the Lucinda extension. Huskie line authorities are hoping to have the line finalized and running before the holiday break.
