The distance from one Pierce class to another is often difficult to cover on foot if a student has classes back-to-back, so bikes and skateboards should be allowed to help students get to class on time.
Riding is forbidden on campus, but signs containing the anti-biking and skateboarding laws are not prominently displayed, and many students do not know the laws are in place.
For this reason, people ride around campus daily and don’t watch where they’re going, rushing around corners and often coming close to careening into pedestrians.
If there were designated areas around campus, riders would be happy to acquiesce and ride in the allotted space, much like a majority of the smokers on campus who light up only in the parking lots where smoking is permitted.
Certainly, safety hazards are avoided with the current policy, but there are ways to make biking and skateboarding safe on campus.
For example, Pierce has a large foliage area that runs the length of the Mall. While the bushes are a nice touch of scenery, a bike lane could easily fit in that space and be much more useful to students.
The Mall is not the only area where it would be easy to add a lane for bikes and skateboards. The campus is open and surrounded by large grassy areas. It wouldn’t take a lot of space to add another path for students on wheels.
If a student has a class on the Art Hill directly followed by one in the Village, the chances that they will make it to the second class on time are slim and most professors are annoyed when people are late to class and cause distractions.
There is definitely no time to grab a bite to eat, make a necessary phone call or use the restroom between classes if the entirety of the ten minutes is spent rushing from one classroom to the next, causing students to have to miss parts of a lecture if they have something important to get done.
Adding a bike lane for faster travel between classes would be extremely valuable to students who ride and would promote pedestrian safety.
