Monique Saleh rides her bicycle in front of the E. Cullen building. | Paul Crespo/The Daily Cougar
With bicycle safety and theft a constant worry for many riders, many UH students are speaking up about their experiences riding to and from class.
Bicycles are a healthy and efficient way to get around UH’s huge campus. Industrial design major Aaron McEuen lives on campus and finds riding a bike to class much better than walking, even though he says pedestrians can be hostile.
“I’ve almost hit a couple people who were walking and texting. I’ve even been spit on,” McEuen said. “No one here likes cyclists.”
He also said students on campus would benefit from covered parking for bikes.
“My baby cost me $1500; I don’t want it exposed to the elements,” McEuen said.
There are many students that own vehicles but choose to ride their bikes to and from campus. UH student Joshua Jones lives in the Quadrangle and rides wherever he goes. He said that though he owns three cars, he still chooses to ride his bike to save money.
Sheed Itaman, another UH student, said he lives about a mile away from campus and rides a bike, which saves him around $40 each semester on parking.
Though many bike riders avoid the parking woes most drivers must deal with on a daily basis, many cyclists still have trouble getting around. According to the UH research results from Robert Browand, director of transporation at UH, Houston is not a bike-friendly city, and adding more bike racks and lanes could make campus more bike friendly.
On the greenUH website, a bike research proposal concerning biking on campus states that the University may soon implement centralized bike hubs, or covered storage spaces for bikes. The idea is currently is in the proposal stage.
“By offering more convenience and safety as well as a low cost, students will be encouraged to utilize their bikes to, from and around campus,” the document states.
This story would have been much more balanced if an effort had been made to interview pedestrians, especially those who have been hit or had near-misses with cavalier bike riders. Bikes make virtually no noise so pedestrians have no warning when one is coming up from behind. Bike riders should yield to pedestrians, not the other way around.
Yeah I feel the same way about cars.
I own a bike, use it (and Metro) as my primary form of transportation. Everywhere I go, I have to LOOK where I'm going or I will get hit by a car, or will run into some idiot. ( I ride 25/mi per week in light and heavy traffic. )To bratty texters who think they own the sidewalk: look where you are going.There are a thousand cases of folks having mishaps because they were too busy texting to see the car, the lamppost, the tree, the water fountain (my personal fav.) the cyclist. (Thank you, YouTube.) Cyclists HAVE to look where they're going to stay alive. Why doesn't everyone else sharing the same path? And as a pedestrian at UH, I would never bring my bike there. The pedestrians are too rude. Maybe civility is too much to ask from this generation of students. "Bike riders should yield to pedestrians, not the other way around. " Like I said, Rude.
Some of the bike riders at school are a-holes. How can pedestrians be expected to keep looking over their shoulders for people on bikes. Bicyclists should use their heads and avoid going into crowded areas or at least slow down and walk their bike.
As far as the article goes, I don't think anyone would spit on you on campus JUST for riding a bike. I'm thinking this guy has hostility towards pedestrians and passed too close by the wrong person.
I was on my bike one day, riding along when someone thought it would be cute to shoot me with a b-b gun. Shit happens. Hey, cyclists make fun targets right? Better than those boring duck games at the carnival. So what's a little spit? Hey it's just guy on a bike, right?
In my experience bikers are some of the biggest jerks on the road. Instead of using the bike trail they take up the whole lane and when I try to pass them they move into the adjacent lane to block me. Yeah some pedestrians are jerks to bikers but it goes both ways.
It's fairly disappointing that no one above or in this article brought up any of the current rules regarding riding bikes on city/campus thoroughfares, particularly SIDEWALKS.
Despite the lack of many bike lanes, I believe it's still *technically* illegal for people over a certain age to ride on city sidewalks. I've no clue as to the rules on campus given that most of the pedestrian paths are shared with the various types of vehicles used by the university.
Here in NYC, all rules are famously enforced as behooves the officer to do so at the time. I live in Staten Island where there was a seeming "crackdown" on bikes on sidewalks. In Manhattan, I've only ever been told to get off a sidewalk once in front of a rather nice hotel that just happened to have it's very own officer posted against it's facade.
The more clearly marked the paths are, and the more of YOU that use bike paths, the better everybody gets at sharing. It also help when we ALL save our incessant fiddling with of our various beeping, bleeping, flashing, buzzing, vibrating, texting toys for when we are still and out of the way (unless only doing so after receiving a cert form a licensed walking and chewing gum facility).
Put the Frenchy's down and ride.
Go Coogs.
You are probably right regarding city sidewalks. But is there a campus in the country that relegates bicyclists to on-campus bike lanes?
I live off campus and I'm a cyclist. Never owned a car, never will. I ride my bike everywhere and I ride to campus every day.
In regards to the laws with sidewalks, in Houston it's only illegal to ride on a sidewalk in designated business areas, which are mostly downtown. You can barely walk on most sidewalks in Houston, let alone ride a road bike on them, though.
Because bicycles are considered vehicles in Houston, they have the legal right to take up an entire lane, regardless of there being a bicycle lane, shoulder lane, or sidewalk available. Bikes lanes aren't really an option at UH, though, because there is only one that run through campus; the one that goes up and down Cullen and people rarely use it because it's full of potholes, glass, gravel, and debris.
I actually rarely have problems with rude pedestrians or cars on the road. Maybe just once or twice a week a car will blare its horn behind me as I'm riding or waiting at a red light. I still have to always stay on alert for cars that don't stop at stop signs or check their mirrors and blindspots before changing lanes, though, because I see THAT all the time.
I'll keep riding my bike everywhere even though I have low hopes for this city to ever be bike friendly. Most people here are too fat, lazy, and suburban minded to ever adopt cycling and walking as an option and the public transit authority here is too corrupt to ever build an efficient system for everyone.
I live on campus and own a bicycle. I have ridden it all over campus to get to classes, and I have to say, there are sometimes when this becomes problematic, but for the most part it's not that much of a major problem (at least for me).
I'd say 1/3 of the time I walk to classes, but the other 2/3 I bike. When I walk and see bicyclists, I try to move for them, but they should be responsible for going around me when I walk. But as a cyclist it is SO ANNOYING when pedestrians think I am too mentally incompetent to have the ability to dodge them, and they suddenly change direction of movement or speed and I can no longer predict where they will be as I'm riding and I almost run into them. As a friendly hint to pedestrians: Bicyclists are not complete morons, we can use our eyeballs and brains to see you and plan accordingly to avoid a collision and keep everything going smoothly. Please remember this. I have been biking for at least 13 years and biking among crowded people for at least 2 years.
As a biker, I have definitely noticed that people walking have no faith in our mental capacity and immediate route-planning skills. Maybe some pedestrians and some bicyclists don't pay attention, but most of all of us do. Earlier tonight I was biking to the cafeteria and this woman with her child yelled at her daughter to "watch out" as I rode by slowly and carefully ( I noticed the girl and the mother) and the girl said, "Moooo–oooomm!" and the mother replied with, "I just didn't know if that person saw you or not!" Just one example of the notion that getting on a bike makes you an instant brainless asshole. Geez thanks.
Either way RESPECT bicyclists if you are a pedestrian, and if you are riding, respect the fellow people walking as much as possible.
As for the covered bike stations. that would be Amazingly awesome! It's too late for my Zimzala Maude though since her paint is scraping and every bolt and part is rusted over. It is unfortunate to invest $340 of hard earned babysitting money into a bike your freshmen year, only to have it rust and get ugly from the elements over the next couple of years.
Since my bike is technically a beach cruiser and I'm young woman, I don't know much about riding around downtown and the greater Houston area, But I don't see many bicycles really. I'm guessing Houston could work on being a bit more bike friendly. 🙂
That's my two cents!
It'd be nice if the article posted this too: http://www.uh.edu/af/greenUH/Biking.pdf