THE ISSUE: Students’ bicycles can now be ticketed and locked up under the conditions of Western’s new bicycle parking policy.
OUR VIEW: By ticketing bikes, Western appears more concerned with making money than encouraging students to help alleviate the parking crisis.
If Western keeps checking places off the list, students may soon need a Ph.D. to know where they can park on campus.
Following last week’s decision to ban parking on the grass during tailgating, Western one-upped itself last week by announcing a new bicycle parking policy.
According to the policy, parking enforcement officers may immobilize any bike not attached to a bike rack. The owner of the bike must then pay a $10 ticket to have their bike released.
That wouldn’t be much of a problem except for the fact that, with the influx of new riders, rack space is at a premium.
Western said that riders would no longer have to compete for a parking spot on campus when it made the push for more people to ride bikes.
So not only has biking to campus lost part of its appeal, Western has decided to punish students for its inability to accommodate this new form of commuter.
But the new policy is about more than Western’s underhanded attempt to suck more money from its students.
The idea that a bike parked against a tree or light pole detracts from the beauty of campus or interferes with its functionality is ridiculous.
Ticketing a bike that blocks a fire exit or a sidewalk is understandable, but penalizing bikes parked out of everyone’s way is unfair and irresponsible.
Adding insult to injury is the lack of a 24-hour hotline bikers can call to have their bike unchained.
Students who find their bikes chained up after Parking and Transportation Services has closed have to wait until the next day for the lock to be removed.
With this oversight, Western has created a safety issue for those students who end up stranded on campus at night without their ride home.
The Herald appreciates Western’s effort to make campus more bike friendly.
But until the university can provide more racks for the bikes they helped bring to campus, they have no right to punish the students who have tried to improve campus parking.
This editorial represents the majority opinion of the Herald’s 11-member editorial board.
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HAHAHAHa, only at Western. I don’t think this should surprise anyone, Western does stupid stuff like this all the time.
Ridiculous, whomever authorized and implemented this policy ought to backhanded severely. I have a pair of bolt-cutters and I offer my services to anyone who’s bike is locked up by the WKU Gestapo.
This is a ridiculous policy some buildings don’t even have bike racks around them and then others are always full what am i supposed to do then? take my bike to class with me so it doesn’t get stolen or impounded.
I think that is what you should do. Take your bike in to class with you. Tell them all the bike racks were full and you didn’t want to get a ticket. The problem is some buildings are more popular than others and at different times fo the day. So between like 11-3 te bike racks will be busting at the seems in front of Mass Media, but all the other times there empty. It is just another thoughtless meaningless policy from a greedy, idiotic philsophy from this university.
This is absolutely ridiculous. A bike chained to a tree detracts from the beauty of the campus? It really doesn’t. This is a college campus; bikes are something you should expect to see. If the university doesn’t provide adequate racks, how is that the fault of the student? Should we take our bikes into our classrooms? Leave them out in the hallway attached to the water fountain? There have been on-going projects all over campus to conserve and recycle; now they are punishing students who do so.
I would also like to point out that this year at Homecoming there were only half as many people tailgating (that weren’t down on South Lawn.) Don’t be surprised if it’s one of the reasons ticket sales are down. There is a humor that some alumni have chosen to boycott going to the games since we aren’t allowed to have our cars. Without the tailgate, it’s just loitering.