This week’s Faculty Council meeting presented several ideas for the future of MU. However, there was one proposition that we found especially ridiculous, and, after years of covering student government, trust us: we know ridiculous.

Faculty members, specifically professor Bill Wiebold, proposed that, beginning next fall, the portions of Hitt, Rollins and Ninth streets that are closed between 8:15 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. be closed permanently, 24/7. If the proposal was enacted, all three portions would shut down permanently in phases.

Faculty Council’s reasoning? Pedestrian safety, drunk drivers on campus and, in the spirit of One Mizzou, making the day, night and weekend campuses ‘one.’ We’ll go ahead and tackle these points one by one.

First, the few accidents involving a vehicle-pedestrian collision in the past few years at MU’s campus have occurred on College Avenue, and, on very rare occasion, on Rollins Street after a pedestrian had jaywalked.

Second, yes, drunk drivers anywhere are a problem. Most of the drunk drivers who are caught on campus aren’t students or faculty, but local residents who are speeding through campus. Closing a few hundred feet of three streets on campus, though, will not solve this problem. There are plenty of streets heavily populated with student foot traffic on campus. Does this mean we should close down all of these pedestrian-frequented areas?

Third, how does a diversity initiative have anything to do with “vehicular traffic,” as the resolution says? We can’t find any correlation. Frankly, this is a comical attempt to tie in a student-led initiative with a completely unrelated faculty proposal.

Ultimately, if MU’s administration decides to go ahead with this resolution, it would be a massive waste of space. Why even have roads if they aren’t going to be used? Yes, Lowry Mall used to be a road, but how much recreational activity can be done on bare asphalt? In a budget crisis, does MU have any funds to spare to turn these areas into something better than what will become a crumbling road?

Another question: What about the bus system and Campus Facilities? We assume that they are exempt from the closed-road policy, as they are now, but the resolution doesn’t define “vehicular traffic.”

And what about emergency vehicles? Even though the resolution says that accommodations would have to be made but should not be a barrier, what justification would there be to slow down a fire truck, ambulance or police response to an emergency in these heavily traversed areas?

Faculty Council also failed to take into consideration that students frequently use those streets to travel around campus. Even though they’re closed during the day, students who commute to, from or across campus would be greatly inconvenienced by the permanent closure of these roads.

In the end, this resolution seems misguided and poorly thought out. We would strongly encourage Faculty Council to disregard the proposal before making campus transportation a huge pain.