Hopkins Students Get Walking 101

Johns Hopkins University students are brainy about many things. University officials are the first to admit that walking isn't one of them.

In the wake of a program last spring that included giving students "I Practice Safe X-ing" T-shirts, Hopkins is stepping up its efforts to make sure students are walking safely with what it's calling its “Road Scholar” campaign.

Baltimore will notice it, too, as thousands of canary-colored shoes start appearing today near the intersection of St. Paul and 33rd streets. That's one of the university's most notorious spots for "pedtextrians," students blithely waltzing through traffic, heads buried in smart phones.

The university will hang 3,000 pairs of shoes -- footwear officials and volunteers spent months gathering and collecting. They're all spray-painted bright caution yellow to make them impossible to miss, along with their intended message that boils down to "watch where you're going, kids."