-by Dr. Paulson Skerrit Dr. Paulson Skerrit works as a teacher, educator and reading specialist in the area of Reading Education as a Lecturer at the School of Education, The UWI, St. Augustine. His research agenda focuses on reading education for struggling readers including the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Dr. Skerrit enjoys road and mountain bike riding and wants to see The UWI St. Augustine campus become home to a safe and vibrant biking community. In 2010, I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to pursue two post-graduate degrees. From the very first day on campus and during my later venture around the downtown area surrounding the university, a constant in the impressions of my new home, was the strategically placed bicycle racks at the entrances to buildings and parks, and along major streets. The network of greenways around the university and student housing and the clearly marked bicycle lanes on campus along with the signs reminding road users to “share the road” served to etch the idea that bicycle commuting was promoted in Knoxville. As a student, I had already begun to seriously consider this mode of transportation after noting the high cost of automobile parking with no guarantee of actually finding an available park in close proximity to my faculty. Since like most university students, my rental accommodations were within the city limits, it made sense to obtain a bicycle and thus avoid contributing to congestion on and around campus, do my part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and benefit from the many perks that the business community provided to bicycle commuters such as free breakfast or coffee. At the university, we even had our bikes registered with the university police and bicycle permits were fixed to each bike. Over the 5 ½ years I devoted to completing my MS and PhD in Education, I cycled in and around campus, explored the greenways, rode with the University’s Outdoor Program and participated in the city bike-tour rides whenever they were organized. During those years, I visited many other universities while attending and presenting at conferences in the US and also had the opportunity to visit UCL, Oxford and Cambridge in the UK during a 2013 summer semester “study abroad”, and the bicycle as a preferred mode of transportation on and around campus was a refreshing cultural staple of university faculty and students. When I moved back to Trinidad and Tobago with the goal of continuing employment at a university, I was certain to pack up my road and mountain bikes and ship them to home, excited at the prospect of continuing the tradition of bicycling as my primary mode of transportation. My first day on the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus felt very different. I still do not know now, as I failed to notice back then, whether there are any designated bicycle racks on campus. We certainly do not have any bicycle lanes on or around campus, and neither are there greenways or clearly marked bicycle routes indicating to potential bicycle commuters the preferred routes to transport themselves to the university and other major places of interest in St. Augustine. My experience as a bicycling commuter on campus often mirrors the encounters faced on the public roads outside of campus marked with intolerance and unreasonableness of drivers, absence of mindfulness on the part of pedestrians who are often visually and aurally glued to their cellphones, and dangerous road conditions marked by huge potholes and debris. One distinct memory while commuting from university housing on Scott Street, was having to dismount from my bike, lift it up and walk in the drain, as the four lanes of traffic created by parents waiting for and picking up their children left no room on the street for a bicycle to pass. Promoting Bicycling as a preferred Mode of Transportation When access to university education in our country was tied to the socioeconomic status (SES) of one’s parents, we could have perceived the latter as a correlate to the presence of just a few bicycle commuters on campus. However, with gate funding and other measures which have opened up many more opportunities for citizens from lower income brackets to access tertiary education, there should have been an increasing use of bicycles as an opportunity to save money and to have a form of transportation when a private motorized vehicle was not an affordable option- assuming that most students still relocate to the area around the campus while pursuing their degree. The reality is that much needs to be done to encourage the use of the bicycle as means of transportation. The university needs to seriously consider psychosocial and environmental interventions considered to be strong correlates to more active commuting to university (Molina-Garcia et al., 2010). This would be consistent with the call being made by the Ministry of Health to address the epidemic of non-communicable diseases such as obesity at a time when it is reported that more than “half of T&T’s adult population is overweight or obese” (Alexander, 2019; Ransdell et al., 2013). Molina-Garcia et al (2010) listed some of the more viable psychosocial and environmental interventions which have proven to increase active commuting to university, such as instituting high parking fees, and improving route access and the safety of cyclists by means of bike lanes and educational initiatives. I still recall balking at the idea of having to pay exorbitant parking fees, and I feel it is unfair to require commuters whose circumstances deem it necessary to use private motorized transport, to pay high fees for parking tags if such an initiative had as its main objective promoting bicycle commuters. There is though a definite need for marked bike lanes and bike paths given the very narrow roadways on campus. We also critically need the infrastructure for securing and sheltering the bikes. Furthermore, bike paths must also be marked out in the St. Augustine, Curepe, Tunapuna and those other areas surrounding the university, with priority being given to those zones identified as having a high population of UWI students. This would certainly make drivers aware of the need to share the road with cyclists. The use of signs which identify the most bike-friendly streets leading to the university would itself be inviting for students and faculty residing in university housing systems to actively consider biking to campus. It would also help if there were access to maintained bathrooms with showers. Of course, as an institution of learning with a marketing department that targets the attention of the entire university community, bike friendly educational programs should be a recurring feature on The UWI website, its social media platforms and the mass emails sent out. The focus of these programs should include the following: road rules for cyclists; road etiquette for all road users; bike maintenance tips; promoting biking as a key aspect of a healthy lifestyle; awareness of preferred bike routes, bicycle skills for riding in traffic and recreational riding and riding on paths shared with pedestrian traffic. Efforts to encourage the use of bicycles as a means of transportation need to consider the personal and social experiences of riders, the domain of convenience and safety as key facilitators driving any initiative, as these account for much of the variance in cycling behaviours (Ransdell et al., 2013). Making the university community aware of the role that biking plays in getting the daily required number of hours of exercise, its contribution to saving money and the environment and drawing their attention to the marked bike lanes will serve to reduce the effects of the barriers to bicycling as a form of transport. Based on my own experiences and conversations with numerous students as well as faculty and staff who frequently express their admiration for the use of my bike in and around campus, I recognize the critical role of measures the university must take to address the issue of safety for cyclists. This is the major barrier factor that needs to be broken down. I recall my stint at the University of Tennessee and the role of the campus police in enforcing traffic regulations on campus. We felt safe cycling on campus. The UWI campus police need to extend their securing of the campus to include efforts to firmly and consistently address the behaviour of motorists. It is commendable that they have given reminders about the speed limit of 30km/hour but more needs to be done. The very narrow roadways mean that motorists can only share the road when they can keep a minimum of .9 metres or 3 feet away from a cyclist. Very often while riding on campus, drivers appear to be on your heels as they impatiently seek to pass you and tend to violate the recommended safe space between the exposed cyclist and the vehicle. It is even more alarming when vehicles bearing The UWI logo are driven in ways that betray a lack of respect for both law and life, when they especially drive through STOP signs and drive outside the white lines onto the lane of oncoming traffic.
An educational campaign must not only target the facilitators of cycling. Success in encouraging the campus community to use bicycles as the preferred means of transportation must also use bike education initiatives to reduce the barriers. Four major categories of barriers have been reported to contribute the variance in cycling behavior: environmental constraints which point to concerns about safety and convenience; personal constraints revolved around fear of having a bike stolen, personal appearance and unpredictable weather; other factors centred around distance and time; and the lack of bike and path access (Ransdell et al., 2013). Of course, some expenditure would be needed to alleviate some the barriers identified above and this would be an opportunity to liaise with the Tunapuna Regional Corporation (TRC), the biking clubs, the Guild, landlords and local businesses to mobilize the resources needed to identify and mark the biking routes, and to build bike racks and bike shelters on campus and at student apartment buildings. Of course the university would need to lead the way and the SPEC department should consider making available a set of bikes that can be used for organized rides and both short-term and long-term rentals. The New Jersey Bicycle & Pedestrian Resource Center (2012) made recommendations to encourage bicycling among college students and I found a few culturally relevant for The UWI campus: provide bike friendly education programs that promote cycling and safety (Marketing and the Transportation Website); create bike share or rental programs to make it easy to obtain a bike (SPEC and local bike shops); construct bicycle infrastructure that include bike lanes and bike parking stations on campus (Engineering and Facilities); make the streets safer with marked lanes and traffic calming signs (TRC); create incentives to encourage cycling as a primary mode of transportation (Rituals, Starbucks and other local businesses); improve links between cycling and other modes of transportation (PTSC); and promote a culture of cycling (SPEC). “Simple changes in the way transportation design is approached would have a marked effect on taking cycling from leisure to practical transportation” (Nicholas, 2016, p. 216). For us at The UWI, steps taken to blitz the campus community with bike friendly educational programs, put in place the needed infrastructure, promote safe cycling conditions and encourage faculty who live in the surrounding areas to lead by example could be our immediate contributions to the simple changes needed. Currently, I see many more cyclists on campus late at nights or in the early morning using their bicycles for recreation. I eagerly await a shift to the practical use of the bicycle as the primary mode of transportation.
29 Comments
|
AuthorsVarious individuals will be contributing to this platform Archives
January 2021
Categories |