In an overnight installation, students woke to find a new, surprising sore eye on Columbia’s once awe-inspiring campus: bright, neon-yellow “MINIMUM 4.5 MPH” traffic signs zip-tied to lampposts, trees, and poor ol’ Alma Mater herself. The installations have been confirmed to be a part of a large-scale reform effort: The Pedestrian Efficiency Enhancement Program (PEEP).
From 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, certified “PEEP-ers” will be stationed alongside College Walk with handheld radar guns to ensure all students and faculty are following new protocols. Individuals detected with mph less than 4.5 will have to endure what PEEP is calling “constructive public humiliation,” widely understood to mean being loudly harassed to “pick up the pace slow-poke” and “let’s get a move on, moron” in front of all of their peers.
“It’s a magnificent program,” said one PEEP representative, beaming with an unsettling optimism. “I’ve never felt greater professional fulfillment than to double-down and publicly humiliate 19-year-olds.”
During passing periods, PEEP-ers will even border off “express lanes” for high-performance pacers. And in order to keep an adherence to the policies, PEEP has developed a reward token system: maintain an average of 5.5 mph a week and have the chance to cash in for a higher housing lottery number.
Sources from Spec report overwhelmingly positive response from the student body.“I’m glad they are cracking down on the bitches who are just too damn slow,” commented Dash Walker (CC ‘26), a native New Yorker and avid jaywalker, when asked about the new policies. “Quite frankly, it’s an epidemic of NPC behavior and brainless transplants. I guess they don’t teach purposeful pacing in bunfuck Ohio.”
Though, not all are as enthusiastic as we are. And as of press time, a four-person wall of first-years has formed in the center of College Walk while they discuss weekend plans, astrological compatibility, and whether it’s “too obsessive” to text their situationships back within 4 minutes. PEEP confirms the group is averaging around 0.67 mph.
What Spec thinks?
It’s about damn time.
