By Reid Heavner,
Staff Writer.
Every morning, hundreds of students flock to our campus. Cars clog the nearby streets, hordes of students walk and a small handful get to school on their bikes. Though overlooked, the last of these options is extremely dangerous.
The issue is that there isn’t a safe, intentional route onto campus via bike. Any route that is reasonably bike accessible is not very safe, whilst any route that is safe is not intended for bikes. To get to the campus bike cage, a student’s only options are entering via the student parking lot or riding across campus.
The student parking lot is notorious for student drivers distracted by their friends, rushing to get to class or trying to beat the post-school traffic. It’s also plagued with parent drivers in no rush, just taking space and clogging the roads around it. The campus itself is full of pedestrians, making it almost impossible to navigate to the bike cage. As senior Quinlan Sauter put it, “Students and parents are trying to get to school faster, definitely not looking for bikes, not checking their blind spots.” The transportation system around our school’s campus was not designed with cyclists in mind.
While some transportation issues are deeply set in our city’s design and campus layout, there are other issues that could be addressed. Cyclists entering campus via the student parking lot would benefit from a bike lane heading westbound on Ridgway Avenue. This would provide an intentional and safe route onto campus for cyclists. Sauter suggested that “just having a way to get into the parking lot so it’s not the one entrance where everyone is trying to get in and out of” would be extremely beneficial. If not a perfect solution, these changes would make biking onto campus much friendlier and safer.
Another issue is that the bike cage offers very little protection for bikes. You can lock your bike, but a bike is much easier to vandalize than a car. Tires are easier to slash, brake lines are easier to cut, wheels can be outright removed in just a few seconds. Leaving the school bike cage unlocked all day every day leaves bikes vulnerable. Sauter shared, “I’ve had two times where my bike has been, like, broken or the tires have been slashed with knives or parts taken off of the bike, and I can’t get home safely after that.”
Admittedly, this is not a one-sided problem. In previous years, the cage was at times left locked during the day. The problem was that administrators would often forget to unlock it after school. Students would sit around waiting after school for someone to come by. Nevertheless, vandalism still remains a very present issue.
Safe biking routes are unfortunately not an issue just on our campus, though. People for Bikes, a non-profit organization centered around improving bikeability, gives ratings to cities based on how safe their bike infrastructure is. Santa Rosa is rated at just 32 out of 100. Surprisingly, this is above the national average of 28, but even so, there is much room for improvement at both the school and city levels.
The City of Santa Rosa has officially adopted a Vision Zero plan. Vision Zero is a movement to reform transportation systems until, on average, there are zero traffic-related fatalities every year. Though the community of Santa Rosa has formed organizations like Bikeable Santa Rosa, a group dedicated to advocating for safer active transportation, very little has been done beyond the planning phase to progress towards this goal.
Biking is an unfortunately dangerous activity in our place and time. Some solutions would be simple and easy to implement, but others require a more systemic reform at a larger level. Issues are strongly present throughout the entire city. Vandalism adds additional challenges.
