Let my people walk

By Ned Andrews

Ladies and gentlemen, today I give you a rest from my usual thunderous ranting. No more siding with special interests, crusading against the visceral sentiments of the masses, or allowing individuals to reap the consequences of their own apathy. On at least one issue, I am one of "the people," and I consider myself able to speak for them. Just like the majority of Americans too disinterested to vote, I lay aside for the moment my notions of political principle and higher ideals. I turn instead to everyday matters, those at the local level that exercise the most immediate control over our lives. Yes, in this respect I am just another Swing Space resident, facing the very same mundane pet peeve as any other—the walk to class.

By some standards, I shouldn't be complaining. Yes, it's a long walk from Swing Space to WLH or Connecticut Hall—but I could have been in TD, dealing with this for all of my four years here. Yes, Stiles and Morse are even greater monstrosities than Swing Space (albeit monstrosities that serve food). But, I just have to look at them as I walk by—I don't actually live there.

Yet when it is possible to improve Saybrook students' trek to class without inflicting any cost or harm on anyone else, I believe Yale should look into the matter. To the Master of Morse College and to the personnel responsible for ID card access, I can sum up my advice in four words: "Open the magic door."

The Morse tower, complete with its corresponding entryway, stands at a critical point between Swing Space and the rest of campus. It provides a simple and elegant way to let us get to class a little earlier, or allow us to leave a little later, whichever the case may be. In an article like this, it's important to get one's facts straight, so I did a little research. I timed the walk from my dorm room to the point where Wall Street meets York Street, in front of the Hall of Graduate Studies. I pass this point on just about every excursion I make—be it to WLH, to Connecticut Hall, to dinner, or to the post office. I employed three routes to get there. First, I walked out the Swing Space gate through the walkway between Stiles and Morse. Next, I went around Morse via Tower Parkway and York Street. Finally, I walked through the Morse Tower—luckily opened from the other side by a passing student—and crossed the Morse courtyard, exiting near Mory's.

Having performed this experiment, I can report the following data. The Morse shortcut is indeed the fastest, with a time of four minutes and 46 seconds from dorm door to street corner. In a close second place was the Tower-York route at about five minutes, five seconds. The Stiles walkway route was by far the slowest, at five minutes, 39 seconds.

So here are the benefits: Take the 19-second difference between the Morse tower route and the Tower-York route and multiply it by the number of students in Swing Space. Now multiply this figure by roughly two trips per day, five days a week, about 24 weeks a year, and there you have the total time saved courtesy of a few keystrokes made by the friendly folks at the ID center. If they had allowed this for Berkeley and Branford students and for those in colleges to be renovated soon, this might add up to an entire bright college semester.

As for the costs, we Saybrugians should prove harmless. There's nothing breakable in the Morse basement, and we aren't even naughty enough to take the Saybrook Strip seriously anymore. The Morsels themselves don't even care, considering that they frequently prop open the inside door. Anyone intent enough and sick enough could simply enter through the main courtyard entrance, make a beeline for the lipstick, go in the nearest door, and do his or her illicit work.

So pending the Morse Master's permission (and I can't see why we wouldn't get it), I'd like to request that the ID center re-code the Morse tower door to allow Saybrook IDs to open it. Lots of benefits, negligible costs. As they say on TV, "Think of all the time you'll save."

Back to Opinion...