Caution: Slow moving vehicles

The freshman experience of meeting the potluck roommate, decorating the new dorm room, smoking the paranoia-free cigarette and making the trip to a food court to seek the refreshment of a Dunkin' Donut Coolata will all be on delay today when students and families swarm onto campus for freshman move-in. \nEven wrong turns will be made at a tenth of a mile per hour due to road construction on Highway 37, a road well-traveled by IU students. \nIn previous years, students moved-in at pre-assigned hours between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., which proved fruitless because the first batch backed everything up and resulted in traffic jams for all the following time slots. IU has foregone assigning move-in times and just given a move-in day.\nIU tried splitting the move into two days in the early '90s, but freshmen griped about being stuck on campus for a week with nothing to do except the orientation activities.\nInstead of taking that as a cue to shorten Welcome Week, IU ditched the split-days idea. They didn't decide to condense Welcome Week until recent years, and the one-day move-in still remains.\n"The more people you can get here at once, the better," said Buck Walters, director of housing assignments and planning. "It's important to make an immediate, good impression on students, and that's probably more difficult to do if move-in is spread across days. There's no simple way to get 6000 or 7000 of these people in at once."\nThis year, some families might not make it to campus before the hassles begin. The difficulties in traffic flow will be compounded by the 10-mile stretch of Highway 37 closed down several miles off Interstate 465 from Waverly, Ind. to the southern boundary of Marion County.\nConstruction started four to six weeks ago, said Jessica Stevens, public information officer for the Indiana Department of Transportation and will take two years. \nThe project will include milling, repaving and reconstructing the \nhighway. Stevens said the northbound lanes will be closed until November, at which point the restrictions should be lifted. But next spring -- right around move-out time -- the southbound lanes will be closed down into one lane, weather pending.\nWhile acknowledging the construction would create problems with move-in, Stevens said construction is done primarily during the warmer seasons -- like spring and summer -- and that some high-volume travel would have been unavoidable no matter when construction was underway. \nChris Fletcher, communications specialist for the Indiana Department of Transportation, advises travelers to avoid 37 and take Highway 67, which runs parallel and is free of construction. But even then, he said there will still be a problem getting into Bloomington. \n"In addition to the congestion that normally happens there, you figure you've got a large number of people coming off a couple corridors -- 37 and 45/46 -- trying to cram in all at once. Bloomington is essentially a small town with a major university, and it creates a temporary problem."\nFletcher said the Department of Transportation has no current plans to help with the situation, but would probably be willing to coordinate with IU if approached, he said.\nWalters said IU is always looking for ways to make move-in better, but that the University has to work around events like orientation, advising and the beginning of fall semester.\n"We revisit the way we approach (move-in) a lot, and we react to a lot of activities that don't always pertain to residence halls to best meet the students' needs," Walters said.\nMarianne Woodruff, director of leisure marketing for the Bloomington Visitor's Bureau, said community needs should also be considered. While freshman move-in is excellent for local commerce, she suggested split move-in days so the community could better accommodate the swell of people. \n"I think it would be easier on the parents and students if (move-in) could be staggered through the week," Woodruff said. "Then parents wouldn't have to go out of the county -- all the way to Indianapolis -- to find hotels." \nIncoming freshman parent Carl Overmyer is thrilled to not be a first-timer. After having gone through the IU move-in process with another child four years ago, he knows what to expect on the 28th when he moves his daughter Hannah in.\n"(Move-in) was utter chaotic confusion," Overmyer said. "The only way (the university) gets away with it is that no one knows what it's like. You have to go through it at least once to know."\nHis wife and daughter are driving down a day ahead of time to avoid the traffic, staying at his oldest daughter's home to avoid hotels and will have their car ready and in front of the residence hall at exactly 8 a.m. to avoid parking problems. \nOvermyer's suggested improvements were to split days and split dorms so people wouldn't all be at their building at once. He also joked there should be more escalators, elevators and a good "beam me up, Scottie" machine so one could bypass all hindrances associated with the move. \nThirty percent of the campus has, in fact, beamed past freshman move-in and is already on campus, Walters said. This group includes athletes, international students, Intensive Freshman Seminar students, faculty, resident assistants and anyone else who applied and paid for early move-in at a cost of $16 per day. \nEarly move-in has been going on since Aug. 11 and 12, and upperclassmen are usually the only students without extenuating circumstances who take advantage of the option.\nGraduate student David Zimmer has gone through dorm move-ins several years, and said his freshman year he didn't mind the traffic too much. He moved into Eigenmann early this year and said he would enjoy being one of the people who sat on their porch and watched everyone else move in.\n"It was pretty hectic, but it didn't put me in a bad mood," Zimmer said. "I was just excited to be in a new place"