LARAMIE — Freshman move-in day at the University of Wyoming is one of the Cowboy State’s biggest logistical undertakings, and it’s usually chaotic. Add to that broken elevators in the dorms and extensive road construction around campus, which can make the day an absolute nightmare.

The opening of a major intersection at the last minute prevented the nightmare of the annual move-in chaos on Friday.

Crowds of University of Washington freshmen and their parents stream onto campus, ushering the new students into their dorms as they try to get their bearings.

Just before the event began on Friday, elevators in all four main dorms broke down, creating lines nearly a block long as parents and students piled into them with carts full of luggage and other belongings.

“An elevator has broken down in each of our four residence halls,” Todd Mendick, UW’s housing and dining maintenance manager, told Cowboy State Daily.

This has stalled the master plan to move students into the high-rise dormitories in stages, starting with the upper floors and then moving down, he said.

Nevertheless, on the sidewalks and streets, at least by mid-morning, there was a mood of patient acceptance rather than certainty and weariness.

“It’s a day where you have to have a lot of patience. I mean, just look at that line,” Kari Short told Cowboy State Daily as she waited to borrow a cart for her son Garrett’s belongings.

Kim Zafft, director of dormitory services at the University of Wisconsin, told Cowboy State Daily that the broken elevators certainly didn’t help an already busy day on campus, but they didn’t completely derail move-in day.

“Every year we face an unexpected challenge,” she said. “Move-in day is still my favorite day at UW.”

Intersection opens on time

Even without the unexpected elevator breakdown, things would be even more complicated this year, as almost the entire campus center is under construction.

The east-facing side of the UW Union is virtually cut off by the massive construction of new dormitories and a new dining hall directly to the north.

15th Street, the main east-west thoroughfare through campus, is largely closed and is expected to remain so until spring.

This raised concerns among UW’s residence hall and dining hall staff, as 15th Street is the only access to King Street, a one-way street that runs in front of the residence halls and Washakie Dining Center.

This meant that King Street was only accessible in the wrong direction and had no exit, meaning that hundreds of vehicles full of freshmen and their parents would have had virtually no way of getting close to the dorms.

Fortunately, at the last minute, a section of 15th Street was opened, leading from Grand Avenue to a new roundabout at the intersection with Ivinson Street.

From Ivinson, vehicles could turn left onto King Street.

“It opened yesterday at 4:30 p.m., just in time,” Eric Webb, assistant vice president of UW Enterprises, told Cowboy State Daily.

There was only one major problem early Friday, Mendick said.

A semi-trailer driver, “who was probably just following his navigation device,” got stuck in the roundabout.

“That clogged things up for a while,” Mendick said. “But then he managed to turn the truck around and head west down the Ivinson again. I’m still not sure how he did it.”

“It was a bit chaotic”

Even though the semi-trailer had long since left, cars were backed up almost bumper to bumper on the stretch of 15th Street up to the roundabout.

It’s still better than cutting it off completely, Zafft said.

“We’ve been saying for some time that we just have to have access to King Street,” she said.

About a block north, along Sorority Row, there was some parking.

There, parents Sandra and Brent Salverson packed an entire shopping cart and had a dorm refrigerator on a rolling cart – all for their daughter Ava.

Ava is the youngest of four children, so the Salversons have experienced many move-ins on different college campuses, but this was the family’s first move-in to the UW.

Overall, things have been going relatively smoothly in terms of construction, Brent said.

“It was a bit chaotic,” he said.

The construction work is far from complete

Large parts of the UW campus will be under construction for some time, university spokesman Chad Baldwin told Cowboy State Daily.

A second roundabout is being built at another busy intersection, 15th and Willett Drive, so 15th Street will remain essentially closed at least until spring 2025.

The new dining center and one of the dormitories, North Hall, will open in fall 2025. The hope is that the second new dormitory, South Hall, will open the following spring, Baldwin said.

Huge projects right in the heart of campus will make getting around the UW more difficult, Baldwin said, but pedestrian corridors have been left open in key areas.

“Wait and see what happens next”

As the crowd continued to gather along Kind Street, parents Ted and Kimberly Johnson surveyed the situation and made a plan to move their son Spencer in later that day.

They had also spent time on Thursday exploring the campus on foot and figuring out how Spencer could get around between classes.

“The construction work significantly limits movement around campus,” said Ted.

“The first day we were just walking around here trying to figure out the best way to get to the Union,” Kimberly said.

Zafft said she wasn’t sure how things would turn out as new freshmen moved out of the dorms and headed west across 15th Street, where the Union and most classrooms are located.

“We just have to wait and see what happens,” she said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at [email protected].