With nearly 4,000 students moving into NIU’s residence halls on Thursday, local officials implemented a new plan to ease traffic.

Instead of diverting all traffic from the south to Annie Glidden Road, the university planned a new route toward the west end of campus.

About 3,700 students moved into the residence halls Thursday, which did not include parents or additional traffic, University Police Lt. Matt Kiederlen said.

Elizabeth Davis has dealt with the move-in day crowd for the past three years while helping her daughter move in. Davis felt this was the best year so far.

“This is nice the way they had it set up,” she said.

Students headed for the residence halls were instructed to go west on Fairview Drive rather than continue on Annie Glidden Road.

After about two miles on Fairview Drive, cars were directed to go north on Nelson Road until they arrived at the Convocation Center parking lot.

There, electronic signs and officers pointed them to where they needed to go based on which residence hall they would be moving into.

Many of those who took the Fairview Drive route were also pleased.

“As soon as we got off [the highway], we were here lickety split,” said Joe Rivera, father of freshman engineering major Bryan Rivera.

Some people did experience a wait at the arena parking lot, however.

“[The wait] was a little bit long, but it wasn’t bad,” said Vicki Wilson. Others appreciated the police presence and the color-coded parking tags that represented the different residence halls.

“I like how the police were standing there to give us the tags to put in the window; very helpful,” said Markeita Yeargain, a freshman early childhood education major.

“It moved pretty fast … I thought it was going to take longer, but it didn’t,” she said.

Kiederlen said officers came on duty at 2 a.m. Thursday and many did not leave until 6:30 p.m.

“Overall, this thing just went really well,” he said. “It was because of the effort that everyone put forth.”