Student Issue, 1983—Pedestrian Bridge to the Agriculture Campus

In 1983 agriculture students again pressed for a pedestrian bridge linking the main and agriculture campuses that would replace bus service between the two campuses. Students living in dormitories on campus often chose the five-minute “overland” route to the agriculture campus rather than riding the K-Trans bus. To do this, students walked down a 10-foot hill covered with burned coal. At the bottom of the hill, they had to cross six railroad tracks, used heavily for loading and unloading cargo, which they crossed (sometimes boarding a slow moving train and jumping off on the other side) while escaping the notice of railroad workers. On the other side of the tracks, they descended another hill about 40 feet high covered with mud and weeds. At the base of this hill, they had to gain access to a steam pipe bridge by climbing a stack of crates to get onto a 15-foot tower and cross through the wire-snipped chain-link fence with barbed wire placed in 1977 to prevent passage. It was a four- or five-foot jump down to the bridge, which was about seven feet long and three feet wide. At the other side of the bridge, another tower and another wire-snipped fence were traversed to gain access to the agriculture campus. The Traffic and Parking Authority adopted the idea of a 1,200-foot pedestrian bridge, which was estimated to cost $700,000, and the pedestrian bridge was placed on UT’s capital outlay request to the State.