Bewildered and visibly off-put by curses from passerby, freshman cyclist Em Inem confirmed with sources that she was unfamiliar with the concept of bike lanes.
“Is that a thing? I thought we could just ride wherever,” Inem, an Earthological Sciences major, said.
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Inem confirmed that the bike lanes on campus were a “totally new thing for her,” and expressed disbelief at the idea that cyclists shouldn’t weave through a crowd or cut across an entire lane of people just because they are running late to class. According to Inem, while she occasionally runs over people’s feet on campus and has somehow managed to knock over someone in a wheelchair before, most of them “seemed cool with it”.
Inem isn’t alone. According to a random survey of 400 freshmen on campus, less than five percent could identify between biking and walking lanes.
“Honestly, I thought these little bike and walking person signs were just some weird kind of weird Colorado-y street art,” Wayne Little, a freshman from Arkansas, said. “If I’m supposed to look down to see where I can walk, how am I supposed to look out for bikers? That’s bullsh*t.”
Little, a Eugenics major, is still struggling with the concept.
There may be hope. According to officials at Residence Life, while most freshmen appear ignorant of bike lanes, many begin to grasp the concept by the end of their first semester of classes.
“While the concept of the separate bike and walking lanes is new to many of our incoming students,” Ross Richardson, Director of Parking and Transportation Services, said,”They do eventually catch on.”
Richardson added that although freshmen do eventually learn the rules, it should be expected that they continue to cut people off anyways. Also, you’ll still have to pay to park your bikes.
Collegian writer Sean Kennedy can be reached at blogs@collegian.com or on Twitter @seanskenn.
