Lily Cabibi-Wilkin, Opinion Editor
Last week, I noticed the multi-use bike path seemed to be almost complete. They’ve removed the orange fencing, some of the cones are gone and there are no longer construction crews present. So I decided to take my bike across the new path and see how it felt. I’m not an experienced biker (I only learned how to ride without training wheels my freshman year), and my bike isn’t particularly special (it’s a pink-and-white coaster brake Schwinn I got from a bike-recycling program ages ago), so I feel like I’m a good person to represent the average campus biker.
I started my ride by heading the direction I would normally need to head if I was using the bike lane regularly: down the road to the crosswalk on the corner of University Loop West and East. I like the solid red crosswalks; I think they’re easy to see and give a nice sense of “this is A-State.”
The path by the Village goes all the way out to the Aggie/Red Wolf intersection. It’s a long path with some slight inclines, and there’s only grass to either side. If you or a loved one is looking to learn how to ride, or if you’re trying to get some exercise in without much work, that part of the trail is a good part to practice with.
However, the path stops right at the crosswalk by that intersection, and there are currently no bike lanes or sidewalks on Red Wolf or Aggie. From what I understand (I do not have a driver’s license) it is legal to ride on the shoulder, but it doesn’t seem to be very safe. I wouldn’t feel comfortable trying to ride my bike off-campus.
One thing I wondered when I saw the bike path up was whether or not it was a viable path out to the field where the marching band practices. The bike path is approximately 250+ feet from the band field assuming the campus map is to scale, so if you rode a bike down the path you would either have to leave it in the grass, bike down Pawnee Street with the traffic or drag it across the lawn.
Heading back towards the crosswalk, I noticed that the bike path was missing some large chunks between the bike lane and the pre-existing road. Luckily there is already tactile paving (the yellow bumps) on the ground, so any visually-impaired people won’t risk tumbling into the gaps.
The actual bike lane on the road was very nice. There’s quite a bit of space between the bike lane and the open traffic, and at no point was I worried about getting hit. In other towns (like my hometown of Hot Springs), the bike lane is right next to the traffic, which feels a lot less safe. The only issue with the bike lane is that the transitions between the bike lane and the campus are a bit tricky – getting from the Education and Communication building to the bike lane means leaving the parking lot through the same exit as the cars.
I didn’t ride my bike down the pre-existing bike lane that was built in 2018, but that lane meets the new lane at the HPESS building and takes you out to the Circle apartments and loops around to the Aggie/Marion Berry intersection, right next to The Yard.
I think there are pros and cons for the multi-use path. The pros are that it stretches over quite a bit of the outside of campus, and makes getting onto campus a bit more accessible for people in The Village or The Circle. The cons are that it’s basically useless for a morning commute if you don’t live or have classes on the south side of campus, and the few kinks I’ve mentioned with getting on and off the bike lane. In my normal ride from Pack Place 2 to the Media and Communications building I typically ride straight through campus (in between the Fine Arts building and Lab Sciences buildings), and while I don’t see myself ditching that route in favor of the new bike lane, it’s definitely a viable option. I think the path is a great space for exercise and I could see having some races there in the future, but I think more bike path extensions will need to be made before the current path becomes an efficient way of getting around campus. Future paths seem to connect the newest path to the baseball field, the Fowler Center, the Quads and the other end of University Loop by Stadium View, which I think will help a lot.
Categories: Life
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