[quote=“earlyniner, post:23, topic:24333”][quote=“919R, post:22, topic:24333”][quote=“jfickett, post:13, topic:24333”]To be honest, I think our campus is designed horribly. When we moved out here in 1964(?) there was NOTHING here. We could have master-planned the school to be set up like a town, with a grid of streets for easy access on and off campus and no real distinction between where the campus ends and the college town begins (if the rest of the area’s developers caught on, which I can’t see why they wouldn’t).
I think our campus is beautiful, the hills and plateaus make for some very nice vistas from certain places on and off campus. But the circulation is absolutely atrocious, there aren’t enough roads on campus and the ones that exist just basically circle the perimeter (with the exception of Cameron blvd that runs in front of the Union which will be closed within the next couple years.) We are boxed in by highways with minimal entrance and exit points, essentially making the campus a big island that is really hard to access. Had we actually had some vision and foresight (I know, I know, impossible for UNC Charlotte in any facet) we could have made this campus more accessible by foot or bus for commuters, alleviated the traffic problem, and given the U-City area a real “college town” feel before all the suburban sprawl caught up. There would be a higher likelihood of a “franklin street” type road emerging here too, which would do wonders for the “suitcase” problem we have.
Just another blunder in the long list of things this school could have nipped in the bud with a little vision. Oh well.[/quote]
This sounds all well and good today, but if you know the history of the school we had to scrap and fight for every dime even more so back in the 60s (and before) than we do now (hard to believe I know). There was no money for such things (as real planning). We used every dime to pay for the basics (concrete office buildings/classrooms) and roads were cut in as cheaply as possible as well. Also, I think the real problems with our design is not the on-campus layout, but the off-campus area. The highways and strip malls, but remember when those were built (the 70s and 80s primarily) and don’t forget the areas around campus were not owned by the school and thus there was only so much that we could plan/prevent within the private sector. This was after the collapse of real “Downtown” layouts, during the era of urban/suburban sprawl. In the last 10-20 years, design has come full circle and the downtown, urban feel is king again. We are making efforts to do some of that, but we have simply been the victim of poor funding and bad timing, IMO.[/quote]
agree w/ most the above. especially about the ‘planning’ of the surrounding area. the vast majority of the funds available for planning came from private sources, mainly a grant colvard got from the z. smith reynolds and mary babcock foundations. [/quote]
Every college that is as young as ours has the same sort of problem in terms of campus layout and location.