About us
bikeeyes is for students, staff, faculty and friends of The Ohio State University, with a common interest in improving conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians on campus and in the surrounding University District.
If you're visiting these pages, then you're probably concerned like I am. As one of the nation's largest schools in an urban environment, OSU has the daunting task of providing campus access to thousands of staff and students daily. However, much of that access has been geared toward the automobile, with cyclists and pedestrians left to navigate the car-friendly streets.
Commuting by bicycle, even from short distances, is generally dangerous due to road and intersection design. Many pedestrian crossings are awkward and unpleasant, pitting walkers against drivers. Redesigned streets and bridges encourage more, faster traffic through the heart of campus and along its borders. New facilities are built away from central campus, requiring students to drive between campus destinations given the present cycling conditions.
In particular, several recent construction projects on and around campus seem to have ignored bicycles:
- The Lane Ave. road and bridge reconstruction, carried out by Franklin County,
included no provision for bicycles. Motorized travel lanes are directly adjacent to
the curb, sidewalks cannot safely accomodate cyclists (particularly at
intersections), and the road's wide,
straight design encourages much higher traffic volume speeds than before. As a
result, the Olentangy River recreational trail has no safe access from the west, as
other east-west streets (e.g. Ackermann Dr) are even more dangerous for cyclists.
- Renovation of the OSU Medical Center includes several newly built roads with no
provision for bicycles, just wide enough for two auto travel lanes. Many of the
sidewalks there are directly adjacent to the street, making them particularly
unpleasant and dangerous for pedestrians (particularly along Cannon Dr.), and
intersections are daunting to cross. New access ramps to Hwy. 315 dump large
volumes of traffic directly into campus, and surface parking lots between Cannon
Dr. and Olentangy River greatly affect the appeal of the riverfront.
- Woody Hayes Dr. has been widened to improve traffic flow, also without any provisions for bicycles. The intersection of Woody Hayes Dr. and Tuttle Park Pl. is unpleasant for anyone not in a car, and the expanded boulevard medians near the intersection leave no road space for cyclists. The completion of Knowlton Hall and the Fisher business complex increases the pedestrian traffic along Woodruff Ave, but pedestrian crossings don't reflect this.
In the process, OSU has fallen far behind other large universities that have taken active steps toward promoting cycling and walking as viable alternatives to driving (see the links page). We believe that OSU can be a much better place for cycling and walking, with many obvious benefits. However, achieving a more pleasant campus environment requires an overhaul of the prevailing design practices on and around campus. And that's why we're here: to raise awareness, and to actively encourage, support and contribute to university and neighborhood efforts aimed at bringing about positive results for cyclists and pedestrians.
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bikeeyes is for students, staff, faculty and friends
of The Ohio State University, with a common interest in improving conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians on campus and in the surrounding University District. This page was last updated December 28, 2004. |