Within the span of four issues of The Maneater, we’ve had to talk about City Council’s lack of representation of students twice. Clearly, there is a problem.

Columbia City Council voted in May to erect a four-foot-tall barrier on College Avenue between Rollins Street and University Avenue with two intermittent crosswalks near the Physics Building and Schlundt Hall. The city claims this barrier “will make it safer for both pedestrians and vehicles,” [citing the problems with students jaywalking across College Avenue](https://www.gocolumbiamo.com/PublicWorks/Engineering/CollegeAveSafetyEnhancements-HistoryPage.php).

This plan will eliminate the left turn onto and out of Rosemary Lane and Wilson and Bouchelle avenues, ultimately meaning that cars must turn at either Rollins or University in order to enter the southern half of East Campus. With the installation of this barrier and two crosswalks equipped with HAWK beacon signals, the safety addition will end up costing around $750,000.

We do acknowledge this could make College Avenue safer. Students may be able to safely cross the street and cars will be alerted when this is happening. The barrier might help prevent accidents from happening on this stretch of College Avenue, and cars may stop having to screech to a halt for pedestrians who are randomly crossing the street. The addition of the high-tech HAWK beacons will also improve accessibility for Columbia residents.

But we also see a lot or problems with this decision.

We hope City Council considered how redirecting traffic onto University Avenue would simply congest and complicate how traffic moves. We hope they considered how this will impact the residents who live on University Avenue. We hope they considered the fact that not being able to turn left into or from East Campus off of Rosemary, Wilson and Bouchelle would mean more cars using side streets in East Campus, thus making parking and traffic on those streets an even bigger problem.

Unfortunately, we don’t know if City Council considered these factors because, frankly, they haven’t told us.

Students at MU are viewed by the City Council as _transient_. Ultimately, we won’t be here for the long run, so why should we be able to make decisions about what goes on here?

That notion in and of itself is ridiculous. Students comprise the majority of residents who are directly affected by this decision, and [as before, our voice has been ignored by the council](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2014/9/9/absurd-bus-ordinance-only-revs-trouble/).

We have experience living on this campus, and we understand how these problems affect campus. College students make up more than a quarter of Columbia’s population, a rate three times higher than in the U.S. population at large. Making decisions which affect students over the summer or not including our voices is unacceptable. We deserve to be included on decisions that affect us, even if we’re individually affected for just four years.

The solution may be to redivide the wards of City Council. Put the city’s three college campuses all under one ward, and dedicate one seat on the council to represent us. Having our own ward would give us a representative who votes not for themselves, but speaks specifically for students. We are a major component of Columbia and its commerce, and we are tired of not being represented properly.

The efforts of the Missouri Students Association’s Campus and Community Relations Committee and its chairman, senior Chad Phillips, to bridge the gap between City Council and our student body are very noteworthy. Phillips and CCRC have worked diligently to provide students with information on the recent changes to Columbia, including City Ordinance 14-180. We commend these efforts and urge MSA to continue their efforts and get even more information out to our campus, so our students can become more aware of what is happening in the community surrounding campus.

That being said, we believe that MSA and other campus groups should consider more actively rallying students across campus to let their voices be heard. [We all saw how well MSA and Associated Students of the University of Missouri’s Kill the Bill campaign worked last year](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2014/5/7/best-state-achievement-house-bill-253-defeated/). If we can make such an impact in Jefferson City, we can surely make even more progress on our campus and in our city.

We’re tired of being ignored by City Council. We’re tired of the council using their position to overlook us. More than anything, we are tired of feeling like we have no power to change what’s happening in Columbia, which is our home, too. We want to see some changes made to the way City Council operates and makes key decisions. And honestly, we wanted to see them yesterday.