Bikes moving in,
cars moving out
at FSU campus
By Browning Brooks
FSU Communications Group
About 30 frustrated FSU students had just climbed the steps of the Westcott
administration building on Dec. 7, 1994, bikes in tow, to protest what they
saw as slow progress in the construction of safe bike paths.
When a huffing, puffing cyclist in pin-striped shirt, bow tie and helmet
arrived in a show of solidarity, they broke into smiles and applauded.
Now, one year later, students, faculty and staff have the "Bow Tie
Trail," named in honor of President Sandy D'Alemberte, and the
administration
has a new commitment to make FSU less of a human bowling alley where cyclists
send pedestrians careening wildly like pins.
"It's just a start," said recent graduate Allen Joseph, who has
fought for bike paths for years without much success. "But Sandy
D'Alemberte
has been doing a great job in helping to create bike trails. We have a lot
of hope."
By the end of February, 800 new bike racks will go up around campus, more
than doubling the existing 600, thanks to a $57,000 federal grant.
A new bike repair shop has opened in the student union and cyclists are
lobbying for bike repair classes. They're looking for $7,000 to buy tools
so that repairs can be free for students.
There is a new bicycle/pedestrian committee of students and high-level
administrators,
along with new policies and objectives. There is better cooperation with
City of Tallahassee trans-portation planners.
The issue is safety as well as convenience. With 80 students per acre, FSU
is severely congested. No campus streets have dedicated bike lanes.
"The sidewalks are inadequate and it has really caused conflict,"
Joseph said. Pedestrians duck and swerve. Cyclists swoosh around blind corners
of buildings and rip through hedges. Motorists fume at the herds before
them.
The Bow Tie Trail, a temporary path of recycled asphalt from Stadium Drive
West to Woodward Avenue, is just one, hard-fought remedy.
"To their credit, the students proposed this trail, and they did their
homework," said Martin Guttenplan, bike/pedestrian planner at the Florida
Institute for Marketing Alternative Transportation in the FSU College of
Business. "To their credit, the administrators listened."
"We want to encourage bike use," said D'Alemberte, who sometimes
pedals to work on the weekends. "This campus is too small for us to
have so many cars."
While students and others want their favorite routes built yesterday, FSU
planners say they have integrated "bike/pedestrian ways" into
the university's master plan, but must wait for the state funding cycle,
or grants, to proceed.
In the plan is an east-west connector road through the intramural fields,
from Stadium Drive West to Chieftan Way, with bike lanes and sidewalks,
that would make portions of the Bow Tie Trail obsolete.
Call Street also has been identified as perfect for a major bike/ped route.
In addition, an inner loop that circles the interior of the campus is in
the works. As FSU spreads its boundaries south toward Gaines Street, there
will be a serious emphasis on bike/ped access and green spaces, said Mark
Bertolami, associate director of facilities planning.
Over time, planners want to eliminate as much automobile traffic as possible
in the core of the campus. They now are pursuing that more aggressively.
"There is an awareness that never existed before," Bertolami said.
"If you had told me a year ago that the university would spend $25,000
on a bike route that was proposed by the students, I would have told you
you were nuts."