In a move to reduce traffic and increase pedestrian and bike safety on Memorial Drive, the University of Miami will begin restricting access to the roadway effective August 19, allowing entry only to visitors, authorized personnel, and delivery, service and emergency vehicles.

Running between the Cox Science Center and the Richter Library, Memorial Drive can be a heavily traveled roadway during the academic year. It is the only street from which to gain entry to the metered parking spaces located behind the Richter Library. UM shuttle buses also travel along Memorial Drive to make scheduled stops at the School of Law/Ungar Building and the fountain behind the Ashe Administration Building.

But under a new policy that will be implemented on August 19, open access to Memorial Drive will end. Students will no longer be able to drive onto Memorial Drive and only faculty and staff with a business/academic need will be allowed access. The policy will be enforced Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The gate will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. weekdays and all day on weekends.

As many as 600 motorists, many of them students, often drive to the Memorial Drive area during normal business hours to park at the metered spaces behind the library. But once the new policy takes effect, much of that traffic will be reduced, according to the UM Parking and Transportation division. With the change, it is expected that the Memorial Drive area will be much safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Twelve accidents involving pedestrians or bicyclists and a motor vehicle occurred on Memorial Drive in 2011 and 2012, according to the UM Police Department.

Restricting access to Memorial Drive is not expected to put a strain on UM’s parking inventory, Parking and Transportation officials said. Recently, almost 400 new parking spaces were created with the addition of two floors to the Pavia Garage, which also now features an 88-space visitor lot on the first floor and a newly created lot at the corner of Levante Avenue and Red Road, next to the Studio Arts Building.

For more information, contact Parking and Transportation at 305-284-3096 or email [email protected].