Today there are many different environments for urban cycling. Modern university campuses are often crowded places on the urban scene, and they present some special challenges regarding bikes and safety. We recently went to Michigan State University to discuss this.

Tim Potter is the general manager of the Michigan State University Campus Bike shop. He’s also their Sustainable Transportation Manager. As he explains, “I’m the guy that is most interested in advancing non-motorized transportation on campus.” Tim maintains an active image on social media, with frequent postings about bicycle safety and advocacy.

College and University campuses are unique places to ride a bike. There’s a large number of people moving about. Some are students, others faculty, and many others are support staff. They’re all focused on a job, not on walking or cycling. Said Tim: “We’re right in the middle of it. We’ve got 17,000 students in campus housing (out of 50,000 total) plus another 12,000 faculty and staff. It’s a small city with 20,000 cyclists.”

MSU is a big place, at 5,200 acres. There are 27 miles of campus roads, and over a hundred miles of sidewalks. This makes riding on campus unique. Tim explained some more. “The layout of campus is a little different that your city or country riding. There are multiple ways to get around, pathways, sidewalks, and roads. You have a lot of intersections when you’re off road. In the city you don’t have as many options.”

“Around here you have to have your head on a swivel. There are diagonal intersections, maybe 5 or 6 different pathways intersecting all at once. During class change time when it seems like all 65,000 people are moving, it feels like Chicago or New York City, it’s so crowded. The roadways tend to come to a stop because there are so many people trying to drop off friends…”

It’s an adventure getting to Tim’s campus office. I parked and had to walk about a half mile using sidewalks, roadway, and a mixed-use pathway. According to Tim, the pathway took a long time to get funded and built. Originally built as 18″ wide pairs of concrete strips (think old wagon wheel tracks), these spaghetti noodles went around the campus. The old concrete is gone now,  replaced with both mixed-use pathway and bike-only pathway.

The pathway is mostly complete going east to west across campus. There’s an interruption for constructing the Broad business school, but even that will bring improvements when finished.

One bigger hurdle will be replacing the bridge on Farm Lane crossing the Red Cedar River. Due to flood concerns, this bridge is critical to public safety in Ingham County. Right now there are no bike lanes south of the bridge, creating a bottleneck for cyclists going south. A new design holds promise that the campus will have its first north-south bike friendly street.

We chatted a bit about cycling education, about how students (and the rest of us) ride around, and the practice of riding bikes on sidewalks. One frustration we share is the variability of traffic laws. In some communities including MSU, bicycles are forbidden from riding on sidewalks; in other places this behavior is expected.

In Michigan the motor vehicle code allows for bicycles to ride on the street, following all the rules for motor vehicles. There are cities where it’s illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalks. Yet on the MSU campus it seems there are equal numbers of pedestrians and bicycles on sidewalks even though a campus ordinance clearly prohibits bicycles from riding on sidewalks.

There is no time at student orientation to cover how to bike safely around campus. So how does a bike safety message get out, and who is responsible for it?

There is no easy answer to this question. The University is concerned first with academics; bike safety is far down the list. The police are busy with motor vehicle safety, and appear to have little time left over for pedestrian and cyclist safety.

Tim was scolded once, in Davis, California, for biking on the sidewalk for a very short distance to get to bicycle parking. As he said, “there’s this mindset in Davis, you just don’t ride on the sidewalks, and the residents will help enforce it, not just the police.  And in Chicago, too, I had an older woman yell at me for riding briefly on the sidewalk to get around a road block. I think the difference is long term residents help enforce things.”

On a campus with 8,000 new freshmen every year and turnover from graduation, few people get to be a long term residents.

Tim doesn’t set policy from the campus bike shop. The University, and the campus police, each lack the time and resources necessary to address how bikes are used on campus. That leaves cycling citizens like Tim trying to fill the void through their own personal behavior, on the bike and by posting bike safety topics online.

Our interview covered many topics including biking a thousand miles at age 15, racing in Japan, and having several grand children. You can read the full transcript  here.

Coming Soon

Our next two safety posts look at safety and policy at the state or provincial level. We spoke with John Lindenmeyer of the League of Michigan Bicyclists, about their recent successes, and future goals for the organization.

Then, the story of Eleanor McMahon, a woman who- after losing her husband in a cycling crash- worked to change the culture and the law.

As always, your comments are  appreciated!

Please Stay tuned!

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