Northfield City Councilors offered feedback to St. Olaf College students working on an NDDC college-community collaboration project.  The Councilors’ suggestions provided additional focus to the students’ work in an effort to support the Councilors’ policy deliberations.  Pictured are students Mallory Undestad and Sydney Mason and Councilors Suzie Nakasian and Jessica Peterson-White.

The students’ project, called simply “The Safe Crossing Project”, looks at which intersections St. Olaf students cross Highway 3.  Preliminary findings seem to indicate that the students’ activities or destinations have a significant impact on their crossing decisions.  Councilors Nakasian and Peterson-White suggested clear differentiation of student sub-groups based on activities, destinations, and modes of transport.  They also suggested looking at different times of day of crossing and student crossing traffic counts as being potentially meaningful in policy deliberations.

The St. Olaf students’ Safe Crossing Projects is one of almost two dozen projects completed by St. Olaf and Carleton College students over the past two years as part of the NDDC’s College-Community Collaboration Projects.  The projects are organized by four broad categories: Enhancing College-Community Collaboration and Communication, Strengthening Our Sense of Place, Growing the Knowledge-Worker Economy, and Securing Resources/Building Sustainability.

The NDDC is a non-partisan, non-profit community-based organization dedicated to the vitality and vibrancy of downtown Northfield.   For more information, contact Executive Director Ross Currier at (507) 663-0319 or rcurrier@nddc.org.