Isolated T-Storms 30% chance of rain HIGH LOW 83 65
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Tuesday, April 3, 2012
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Issue 53
E D I T O R I A L L Y
Sara Jung Staff Writer With summer fast approaching and only four weeks left in the Spring Semester, outdoor activities are on a lot of minds. Luckily for East Tennessee and Knoxville, getting outside and playing just got a lot easier. From mountain biking to rock climbing, paddling to s k a t e b o a r d i n g , OutdoorKnoxville.com features an array of information about activities to do close to Knoxville within East Tennessee. “Being in Knoxville, the outdoor activities available to us abound and OutdoorKnoxville.com is people’s way to be informed about how they can get outside and play,” Elle Colquitt, site manager for O u t d o o r K n ox v i l l e . c o m , said. OutdoorKnoxville.com is supported by the Legacy Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 that seeks to ensure that the current community and future generations can benefit from recreational opportunities, natural environments and open areas. Legacy Parks Foundation also works with the City of Knoxville, Knox County Parks and Recreation Departments and other organizations that focus on outdoor recreation. “When people get outside, they experience something they don’t feel on a regular basis,” Colquitt said. “A bond is built and people feel a sort of stewardship to
the environment. When people get outside, they are more likely to take care of it and they see the advantages of protecting our lands. That’s what we like to promote.” According to the Legacy Parks Foundation website, since July 2007 the foundation has raised over $3 million in private donations for parks and open space, helped conserve nearly 1,000 acres of forest and farmland in East Tennessee and added 200 acres of parkland in Knox County. OutdoorKnoxville.com is one more initiative the foundation has started in order to emphasize outdoor recreation opportunities around Knoxville and East Tennessee. “The site features our region’s abundance of trails, greenways, waterways, activities and amenities,” Colquitt said. OutdoorKnoxville.com covers activities from the Tennessee section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Obed Wild and Scenic River to sections of the Cumberland Gap, east of Panther Creek and will soon reach to Tellico Plains. “Anyone can benefit from the information on the site,” Colquitt said. “People of all levels and skills can find something that appeals to them. Beginners can get on the site and find stuff to do, but also people who really know what they are doing and are experienced can find something new.” Experts contributed their advice on the different activities they are skilled at. See OUTDOORS on Page 3
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http://utdailybeacon.com
Vol. 119
I N D E P E N D E N T
Website helps Knoxvillians find outdoor activities
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New campus construction causes headaches, confusion
Wade Rackley • The Daily Beacon
Students walk up Andy Holt Avenue in between classes on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010. The closure of Andy Holt has affected student movement between classes as well as UT bus routes on campus.
Wesley Mills Staff Writer As students are already realizing, campus looks very different from what it did before they left for Spring Break. Along with new traffic lights being put up, one of the major changes is the closure of Andy Holt Avenue due to construction of the new student center. The construction affects not only students who are driving around campus, but also the transit buses that must alter their routes. “With the closure of Andy Holt Avenue, that’s a pretty major east-west connector transit service,” Belinda Woodiel-Brill, director of marketing and development with KAT, said. The closure of Andy Holt Avenue significantly alters two routes. “One is the east-west route and the other is the Late Night T route,” Woodiel-Brill said. “Both of these are going to be using Cumberland Avenue all the way over to Volunteer Boulevard. So if you are on the Hill and catching the east-west bus, that bus is going to go back out
Cumberland Avenue and go all the way to Volunteer Boulevard, and then it’s going to go left on Volunteer Boulevard, and then that gets you back into the heart of campus, where the Haslam Business Building and library is, and will resume regular routes from there.” The Late Night bus will take a similar route coming back from Fort Sanders. Woodiel-Brill said that instead of going straight from James Agee Street to Phillip Fulmer Way, the bus will take a right onto Cumberland Avenue and then a left onto Volunteer Boulevard. No stops will be made on Phillip Fulmer Way. Woodiel-Brill said that her team discussed all the options with the UT Parking and Transit Service, and they concluded that these were the best alternative routes. Nick Frank, senior in finance, said the new routes could be confusing for students who are unaware of where they need to be. “I can see a lot of people frustrated by not knowing that they were closing the roads and seem pretty lost,” Frank said. “It’s fine for students who know the other ways to get around, but not
the people that aren’t on campus much.” While all the bus stops have new maps explaining where the pick-ups and drop-offs are, Woodiel-Brill said that if students are informed, they will be fine. “We tried to put as much information out as we could,” Woodiel-Brill said. “We have ridetheT.com website. It has the new map on there. We’ve got new maps posted on the shelters. We tried to get all the bus stops changed like they need to be changed.” The website provides information about the new routes as well as up-todate information on any upcoming changes that students need to know about. “We are encouraging people to study the maps, be sure they have a good sense of where the bus is going so that they don’t stand in the wrong place and tell your friends,” WoodielBrill said. Only four weeks out from finals, Frank wonders “why now?” “I think the renovations should have been done over the summer, where it would inconvenience less people,” Frank said.
March heat breaks records The Associated Press
George Richardson • The Daily Beacon
Boundaries and caution signs point out the construction in and around the UC garage on Sunday, March 18. A number of roads and pedestrian passways have been closed to keep students and staff out of dangerous zones around the construction area.
WASHINGTON — Freak chance was mostly to blame for the record warm March weather that gripped two-thirds of the country, with man-made global warming getting only a tiny assist, a recent federal analysis shows. For much of March, record temperatures hit as high as 35 degrees above normal and averaged about 18 degrees warmer than usual. The United States broke or tied at least 7,733 daily high temperature records in March, which is far more than the number of records broken in last summer’s heat wave or in a blistering July 1995 heat wave, according to federal records. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed the causes and chances of what it nicknamed “meteorological March madness.” Meteorologist Martin Hoerling said the main cause was a persistent warm wind sending toasty air north from the Gulf of Mexico. The study is not peer-reviewed and some outside scientists say it is short-sighted. “Climate change was certainly a factor, but it was certainly a minor factor,” Hoerling said. He said the bigger issue was wind patterns.
Low pressure in the Pacific Northwest and high pressure in New England created a perfect funnel, like the gutter lane in a bowling alley, for warm air in the Gulf of Mexico to head north. That air is about 15 to 20 degrees warmer than the air in the Midwest. From time to time that air heads north, but what is unusual is that the wind pattern stayed that way for about two weeks. “Why wouldn’t we embrace it as a darn good outcome,” Hoerling said. “This was not the wicked wind of the east. This was the good wind of the south.” For example, Chicago had nine straight record hot days, eight of them over 80 degrees when usually that city doesn’t hit 80 until late June. Hoerling said it’s hard at this early point to apportion blame for an event so massive and rare. This seems to be about a once-in-century type event. If this were a once in 40 years type heat wave, as initially predicted, it would be fair to say the chance of it happening is about five part randomness to one part manmade global warming. “It is a freak event that appeared to have perhaps a freak ancestor, 1910,” Hoerling said. In that year there was a similar heat wave.