East 17th Street is a heavily used road on Indiana University’s campus. With Assembly Hall, Memorial Stadium, and State Road 45 all connecting to it, the street experiences heavy traffic flow on a day-to-day basis. The two streets bordering the crosswalk, N. Eagleson and David Baker, house almost all of the university’s Greek life, making the crosswalk a hotspot for pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.

 

Both intersections have crosswalks that allow students to cross East 17th, but the more heavily used of the two is the intersection with N. Eagleson Avenue. Over the years, there have been several accidents involving pedestrians and vehicles, and many students are now growing increasingly concerned about the safety of that crosswalk. 

According to the Crash Data for Bloomington, from 2019 to 2024, there have been 329 accidents involving pedestrians, 219 involving bicycles, and 20.6 thousand involving cars at the intersection. Some of the most recent incidents have taken place within the past year. 

 

In October of 2024, four pedestrians were injured at the intersection after being hit by a moving vehicle. All four were transported to a local hospital; three sustained non-life-threatening injuries, while the fourth was brought to the hospital in critical condition. 

A year later, on Oct.18, 2025, a similar incident occurred at the intersection, involving two Indiana University students and members of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority who were struck by a car and rushed to the Hospital. Following the Incident, Hannah Kajor, a member of Zeta Tau Alpha, formed a petition to have changes implemented at the crosswalk to increase the safety of pedestrians. The petition has reached 7,998 signatures, and not only were people signing, but they were also sharing their stories and frustrations in the comment section of the page. 

One comment came from Lyn, a mother whose daughter had been hit in 2024. 

“The one thing I would correct in the narrative is the “near miss” statement. In November of 2024, my daughter was visiting IU and was in this crosswalk as a 1 of 4 pedestrians who was hit by a car. I’m shocked the events of that evening were not enough for action to be taken. Those events have forever changed her life. I plead for action to be taken so another family doesn’t have to go through what we have experienced the last year,” she said. 

 Kerry Thomson, Bloomington City Mayor, also commented on the petition, discussing her “Safe Streets for All Plan”  that is taking a “Systemwide approach to traffic safety focused on what’s known as our high-injury network—the small percentage of streets where most serious crashes occur.” 

Mayor Thomson noted that East 17th Street and Eagleson are already identified in “High injury network.”  She also noted that it will take time for serious changes to be made. 

“It’s important to know that design and construction for projects like this take time. We’re in the concept development stage—identifying what’s possible, where it fits in the system, and how to fund it. Nothing has been approved or funded yet, and that’s intentional. We want to get it right,” she said. 

As a temporary solution, new pedestrian crossing signs have been installed at the crosswalk to improve visibility and calm traffic.