There was an interesting snippet in the article about me in the Herald-Times today:

Example: Bike routes should extend from the city and IU campus out into the county to facilitate bike commuting by folks who live outside town. Planning for transportation alternatives must cross bureaucratic and governmental boundaries.

This was attributed as an example of one of my current goals, encouraging cooperative work between city, county and university on some of these sustainability issues.

I feel like I should explain this one a little more, especially because there are great projects in the works at both the city and county level for alternative transport, and the new IU Master Plan really calls for a lot of upgrading in bike/ped infrastructure. It is worth noting that Melissa is WAY more of an expert on this stuff than I am, and I'm really just doing this off the top of my head. Her experience and knowledge through the Bloomington Bike and Pedestrian Safety Commission is so far beyond mine that she should really be writing this, not me. Hopefull she won't be too hard on me after she reads it.

I am aware, too, that the city and county are working together to link some of the new greenways projects together, and to allow folks to move across town, especially westward, on bike trails. From what I've heard of these projects, they are moving in a great direction.

There are also a variety of path projects from the city and that are mentioned in the new IU Master Plan that fit into what I'm seeking here, and they are encouraging.

But here is my extremely crude drawing of the existing marked bike lanes (blue) or multiuse bike paths (green) around campus (red) in Bloomington (based on page 9 in the Bloomington Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation & Greenways System Plan) :

The grouping of blue on the left are the sharrows in college/walnut and the bike lanes on washington and lincoln. I've drawn in a completed B-Line, as they have broken ground and I'd expect it to be finished eventually, given continued funding. The one bike lane that really cuts through campus is on Jordan, but it unfortunately ends as soon as it gets off of IU, so it doesn't really connect the town to the campus.

The glaring thing to me is that while there is good, and growing support for biking to the downtown area, especially on the North-South axis, there is very little dedicated bike/ped infrastructure leading from the city into the campus or vice-versa.

So why is this important? IU has a daily demand of over 14,000 parking spots on campus according to the traffic studies done for their recent master plan. Over 70% of faculty and 75% of staff drive alone to work at IU. Compared to a greater share of those individuals using alternative transport, this presents all kinds of problems for IU, the city, and the faculty and staff. Roads need to be built, expanded and maintained. Tons of carbon are emitted to our societal detriment, and faculty and staff members are having to pay for all the expenses associated with cars, as well as buying permits and forgoing the benefits of walking or biking to their health (the university helth plan loses out here too).

But we can see examples of other city/university units that seem to get this interaction to work better. Here's my very crude map of Madison (lakes and all):

Madison's bike lanes and paths lead to and from the campus in all directions. Their abundance of dedicated bike/ped paths that are physically separated from cars is fantastic, and even on the istmus, where there is precious little real estate to work with, they have put in bike lanes on the major roads.

One of the results is that 50% of Madison's faculty and staff and 89% of their student body use alternative transportation to get to campus. IU is at around 28% and 72% for alternative transport, and we can do better.

There are plenty of people who are afraid to bike because they don't want to interact with cars. I'm pretty used to it at this point, but it really does make a huge difference in my comfort level and enjoyment of riding when I know I don't have to worry about someone sideswiping me. More bike paths (not just bike lanes, though they are nice) or dedicated roadways repurposed for bikers and walkers would make Bloomington a much nicer place in general to live a low-impact life in.

PS I'm the worst computer artist in the world today.