August 27-28 to be UW’s peak residence hall move-in days

Next Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 27 and 28, approximately 4,000 of the 6,700 University of Wisconsin–Madison students who will be living in campus residence halls this fall will be moving into their new homes away from home. The halls will open at 8 a.m. each day.

Some student employees will be arriving earlier to assist with the move-in, and Ogg Hall offers an early arrival option for about 1,000 students who are assigned there. Again this year, University Housing staff and returning student residents known as “Badger Buddies” will be greeting the newcomers, answering questions and helping them move in.

Each year, University Housing makes a great effort to coordinate the move-in process to minimize traffic problems and ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. However, with various road construction projects under way in the campus area, daily commuters may want to avoid streets in the vicinity of the Southeast and Lakeshore residence halls.

Traffic patterns on the following streets will be altered on Aug. 27 and 28:
* Beginning at 8 a.m., West Johnson Street between Frances and Park streets will be made available to students who are moving into the Southeast residence halls (Sellery, Ogg and Witte). Those arrangements were included in the Johnson Street reconstruction project contract. However, motorists are reminded that West Johnson Street will remain closed to all other traffic.

* Lake Street will remain open (a change from previous years), and West Dayton Street will continue to be one-way eastbound, as it has been all summer.

* Observatory Drive from Charter Street to Babcock Drive will be restricted to move-in traffic only and will be one-way westbound from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

* Elm Drive will be one-way northbound from Observatory Drive to Willow Drive, and Willow Drive will be one-way westbound to Marsh Lane from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Several university parking lots near the residence halls will be used for unloading, which will severely limit spaces for faculty and staff and require some employees to use alternate parking in other lots.

University of Wisconsin–Madison classes begin on Tuesday, Sept. 2.