(Editor’s note: The paper version of this article lacked the Quick Assessment section, replacing it with a summary. The new section has been spaced out to make it stand out more from the rest of the article.)
A-State has been marked as a Silver Award Bicycle Friendly University by The League of American Bicyclists since 2018, previously having had a Bronze award in 2014. According to the LAB, “Applications to the Bicycle Friendly University are graded on how well the campus makes biking an accessible and easy option for everyone. Campuses that earn the highest award levels offer well-connected bike networks with infrastructure for people of all ages and abilities, bike maintenance facilities and secure storage options, theft prevention programs, classes for people to hone their biking skills, campus events that promote bicycling as an option and staffing to support better biking.”
A Silver University, according to the LAB, is one that “Definitely feel(s) welcoming to bikes but there is still usually work to be done in 2 or 3 of the E’s to undergird the bicycling culture and opportunities.”
The LAB’s Bicycle Friendly America program, the program that decides the rankings, follows five categories of criterion: Engineering; Education; Encouragement; Equity, Diversity & Inclusion; and Evaluation and Planning. (Previously, Equity was Enforcement, but Enforcement was removed from the categories in June 2020 so that the LAB could “begin to determine how the BFC program can best contribute to policy and cultural changes that reduce the potential for police violence and discriminatory enforcement.” Several parts of their website do not reflect this change, however.)
The LAB also has a Quick Assessment on their website, which has 10 questions to evaluate a university. Let’s go through them one by one, and see how A-State matches up. (We will be including Enforcement in this article.)
Engineering: Does your campus have a well-connected bicycling network? Is bike parking readily available throughout the campus? Is the college or university easily accessible by bike?
I’m not sure I would consider A-State to have anything resembling a network. We have people who ride bikes, certainly. We have several separate pages about biking on campus on the A-State website, but the information is not consolidated and often outdated.
While there is bike parking available in front of almost every building on campus, some tend to fill up pretty quickly. In particular, the bike parking inside the dorms is insufficient, particularly in Northpark Quad 3, where I park my bike. There is not enough room in the dorm bike racks for those who wish to keep their bikes away from the elements.
As for accessibility, it is possible to bike to A-State’s campus from almost every angle. The only inaccessible roads are Aggie Rd and Red Wolf Blvd, because there are no sidewalks or bike lanes. This makes safely biking to places like Turtle Creek Mall next to impossible without taking a longer route.
Education: Does the school offer bicycle education classes for students and staff?
Definitely not. To my knowledge, there is no formal bicycle education class offered for credit. There’s a spin class offered at the Red Wolf Center, but that does not count as “bicycle education”.
Encouragement: Is there an active bicycle advocacy group at the college or university? Is there an on-campus bike center for rentals and repairs?
No, and no. There’s no bike group to my knowledge. Technically, you can rent bikes from the Red Wolf Center (or you could, pre-COVID-19), and there’s a single bike repair station by Centennial Bank, but that’s it. There’s no centralized bike location.
Enforcement: Do campus safety/law enforcement officers receive training on the rights and responsibilities of all road users? Is there a program on campus to prevent bike theft?
I’m not sure about the answer to the first question, but as far as I’m aware there’s no “program” on campus to prevent bike theft other than telling students to use their own locks.
Evaluation: Does your school have a current comprehensive bicycle plan? Does your college or university have a bicycle program manager?
According to the A-State website, there is a Bike Program Committee, which consists of William Hall (A-State’s landscape architect and university planner), Dr. Bill Smith (chief communications officer), Randy Martin (chief of university police department), Dave McKinney (director of parking services), Dr. Lance G. Bryant (Associate Dean of College of Education and Behavioral Science and professor of physical education teacher education), Dr. Paul Finnicum (Chair of Health, Physical Education and Sport Sciences and professor of health promotion), Blake Walker (Associate Director of Access and Accommodation and contact for emotional support animal inquiries), Cameron Nolen (student) and Haley Stotts (Past Student Government Association president and alumna). The list on the website doesn’t indicate who is the program manager, or what roles each member of the committee plays.
(Also, some of the members’ profiles are listed twice, and are clearly copied from other parts of the website, creating confusion. For example, it appears that Dave McKinney is the director of the bike program committee, rather than the director of parking services.)
Obviously the requirements for a BFU award are more in-depth and complicated, and clearly A-State was doing SOMETHING right to have gotten and maintained a Silver award for this long. But as someone who actually rides a bike on campus, I just can’t see the good.
My last issue is one that likely cannot be fixed, but deserves to be said: A-State’s campus is very steep. Unless you’ve got particularly strong legs, some of the hills on campus can be hard to climb on a bike. While building up the muscles to climb those hills is good exercise, I feel like it should have some bearing when considering whether A-State is bike friendly.
So, what changes would I make to campus to make it bike friendly if I had the power to do so? For starters, I would add more bike repair stations to campus. Put one on either side of the union, or by the library. I would also see what solutions there are for expanding residential bike storage, even if it just means putting little awnings on top of the bike racks or making sure bikes are not abandoned over the summer to free up space on the racks.
I would also look at having some sort of a community for bike riders. Getting a club membership might be hard, but having some way for bike riders to connect would be cool. I would also like to see more transparency and visibility for the bicycle program committee.
All in all, much as the description of the Silver Award says: there is still work to be done. And as more students return to campus, it would be great for them to return to a campus more accommodating to bike riders.
Categories: Opinion
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