On a college campus, they’re impossible to avoid.

Crosswalks are a simple way for pedestrians to safely get across the street.

At Virginia Tech, though, it hasn’t always been safe, but that’s something that might be changing.

Last semester, a number of students were hit while crossing streets around campus, but Lt. Wendell Flinchum of the Virginia Tech Police Department said officers hope some changes this semester will increase pedestrian safety.

The most noticeable changes are on Washington Street and include: taking parking off one side of the road; increasing the space between crosswalks and parallel parking spaces from one car length to two; expanding the lighting; adding bars within the parallel lines; changing the color scheme to white and green; and putting pedestrian crossing signs in the middle of road.

Steve Mouras, director of transportation, said his department did “a fairly exhaustive analysis of what worked and what didn’t work.”

He said Washington Street has so many changes because it was used to test some of the things studied.

Other areas around campus have seen some changes as well.

The standard for crosswalks has been changed from parallel lines to lines that include horizontal bars in them, known as the continental style, which can be seen on crosswalks near Burruss Hall.

The transportation office has gone so far as to study what type of material works best and what lighting is most effective for seeing pedestrians, Mouras said.

So are the changes helping?

It’s hard to say. They’ve been in place since the beginning of this semester but some people are still getting hit crossing the street.

Virginia Tech sophomore Eliza Furedy was hit at the beginning of the semester crossing Washington Street in front of Cassell Coliseum late at night.

Eliza said the improvements are a good idea but “people still don’t pay attention to them as much as they should” and that police should “monitor it more … [and] make sure that drivers follow the speed limits.”

That’s something else the VTPD is trying to do.

Officers have speed displays set up around campus to make people aware of their speed and try to get them to slow down. They also have a program in which they patrol certain crosswalks during their shifts and enforce the law for pedestrians and drivers.

Flinchum said officers are giving tickets to drivers for failing to yield to pedestrians, but with pedestrians, they normally just give a warning and a reminder to be aware of their surroundings.

That means this isn’t just a problem with drivers being unaware, but pedestrians being unaware as well.

In some situations, it’s a case of “the blind ‘hitting’ the blind.”

Just a few weeks ago, a Tech research assistant was hit while crossing West Campus Drive. She wasn’t in a crosswalk.

“It’s a shared responsibility between the pedestrians and the drivers of the vehicles,” Flinchum said,

“It goes back to what we learned as children — to look both ways when crossing the street. … Yes, you have the right of way in a crosswalk, but you need to make sure that vehicle is stopping before you cross the road.

“With drivers, it’s just an awareness that this is a heavily populated area with pedestrians.”

And that’s exactly what the transportation department is trying to do — implement ways to make drivers more aware of pedestrians.

Only time will tell if all the changes have truly made the campus safer for pedestrians, but Flinchum is optimistic.

“I think it’s helpful. It’s certainly increased the visibility to drivers of vehicles that there is a crosswalk they’re approaching,” he said.

And the transportation office will continue to update crosswalks around campus with the new changes they’ve studied.