By Rick Emrich
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 24, 1997

Traffic on campus must be fairly regulated

Editor:

As a campus cyclist and pedestrian, I've come close to becoming pavement gravy more times than I care to count. Most of my close calls have been at the hands of automobilists, though I'm not sure whether the worst offenders are the yodels who insist on making right turns in front of cyclists, or the drivers of campus vehicles who, I swear, have a point system based on how many layers of a person's clothing they can brush with a bumper without actually striking flesh and bone. This is a real trick in the summer. The hourly "dodge 'n' duck" between cyclists and pedestrians is also a big problem. And while I sympathize with the folks who have to skitter across the road to avoid getting mangled in the spokes of someone's brand new mountain bike, I get pretty irritated when they insist on walking (sometimes two or three abreast) in clearly marked bike paths.

Something needs to be done about the problem, but focusing on reforming cyclists while treating pedestrians as sacrosanct won't work. When Parking and Transportation Services warns that bikers can be ticketed while it (apparently) ignores pedestrians, that's exactly what is happening.

Pedestrians who walk in bike lanes, who cross bike lanes without looking, or who stand in crosswalks having conversations are as much a part of the problem as bicyclists, and they should be just as liable for citations as cyclicts who run stop signs or ride on sidewalks. Ticketing scofflaw cyclists and leaving their pedestrian counterparts alone won't do anything to solve the campus traffic problem. It will only make it impossible for cyclists who do follow the rules to get around campus quickly and safely.

Rick Emrich
Media Arts graduate student