As someone who bikes around campus on a day-to-day basis, I have a mixed bag in terms of experiences. While the campus is quiet, I can’t honestly say I have no complaints. The sidewalk situation is less than desirable on some spots of campus, but I can generally look past that. While the campus is busy, especially when people are walking to classes and people are driving up and down Long Road, it’s a nightmare. People cross the street without looking, and cars don’t really know what to do. It is a nightmare! 

One change could be made to make campus not only more biker-friendly, but also more pedestrian-friendly. I’d like to see Long Road blocked off for most of the day. Commuters would still be able to get onto campus, they just wouldn’t be able to drive up and down Long Road all day. The only spot that would be inaccessible for cars would be the Knox Hall lot. This could be remedied however, by connecting the Knox lot to the Stewart Quad lots.

Cars going through the middle of campus create not just a lot of traffic, but also pose a significant amount of danger. 

Last year, someone was hit by a car on Long Road, luckily only suffering minor injuries. This would not only increase the safety for pedestrians, but also for bikers. Whenever I bike up and down Long Road, I have to worry about if someone from the sidewalk is going to walk out without looking, or if a car is going to give me enough space. I always have to worry about the cars turning onto Long Road hitting me. Blocking off the road for most of the day would largely eliminate these problems because it would open up the road for better use by bikers, and people walking and trying to cross the road won’t have to worry as much about their surroundings.

You could argue that commuters would have a difficult time getting on campus, but all commuter lots are on the periphery and would still be accessible even without Long Road. The other roads on campus would still connect one side of campus to the other if it’s absolutely necessary to drive through campus. 

The situation on much of campus is not really one we can control. We obviously cannot start policing the sidewalks everywhere on campus, making sure bikers have space to move. But areas like Long Road can be adapted to make it not just safer for bikers, but for everyone. Over time, small changes like this would end up transforming what our campus looks like. We should be transitioning, like many other places in the world, to a much more biker and pedestrian-friendly campus. The more we allow cars to dominate the infrastructure around us, the less space we have to actually exist in the places around us.