Tech Officials, SGA: ‘Ride Your Bikes!’

By Nicole Crites, Ellysa Gonzalez, Alyssa Herzog, Hannah Hipp and Maddy McCarty   

On the nation’s second largest university campus, spreading over 1,839 acres, buses have limited reach, parking is costly and finite, and walking is only for the bravest of hearts.

What’s left? Try biking, say those who see the big picture.

Almost 36,000 students are enrolled at Texas Tech this fall, according to the university’s Institutional Research office. More than 10,000 commute to campus, and more than half of Tech students use alternative transportation — biking, walking and riding the bus — to get to class, said Stacy Stockard, marketing coordinator of Transportation and Parking Services.

“Which is an amazing percentage; it’s one we’re really proud of,” Stockard said.

For now, Tech’s commuter lots are able to handle parking demand, Stockard said. However, as Tech’s enrollment grows toward 40,000, the university wants to continue to encourage alternative transportation. Beyond walking, the options are only two: buses and bikes.

Option 1: Buses

Stockard said there are three on-campus buses and seven routes that include stops at nearby apartment complexes.

“The apartment complex routes have been very effective,” Stockard said. “They have been very well-used, very helpful for our students.”

However, as the map below shows, many apartment complexes populated mostly by Tech students, still lack access to public transportation.

Caleb Fisher, external vice president of the Student Government Association (SGA), said students’ main complaints about the bus system include long wait times and route changes. Adding more buses, maintaining route consistency and better technology use would improve the system’s effectiveness, he said.

Click to view a map of residential complexes that are out of the TTU bus system’s reach.

But such changes are not only up to him.

“We represent student interest and somewhat oversee the bus routes from a student perspective,” he said. “So, it’s not me sitting down figuring out where buses go; that’s up to the transportation and parking department, administration and the Board of Regents. That’s above my pay grade, but they present those things to us, the student government, and we suggest and make changes.

Added Fisher: “We would like to have a way to track the buses and apps to basically see where the buses are going and where they have been, more 21^st-century type of technology. Unfortunately, that takes quite a bit of money and time to implement.”

Option 2: Biking

Fisher said the Lubbock City Council is working on a $250,000 Lubbock-wide bike initiative that would put more bike lanes around campus and make it safer for bikers to travel.

One of SGA’s initiatives this year is to encourage more biking on campus because it is not only environmentally friendly but also conscious of campus finances.

Caleb Fisher, external vice president of SGA

“Bikes reduce parking issues,” Fisher said. “Bikes are a solution to a lot of problems, but it’s just one of those things that takes time as well to change the culture of what people are used to.”

Craig Cotton, a supervisor at Tech’s Transportation and Parking Services office and member of the Bicycle Coordinating Committee, said about 6,500 cyclists park or ride their bikes to and around campus on any given school day.

“Our capacity for bike parking is around 8,000 bikes,” Cotton said. “We’re right at 90 percent-ish in the meat of the school days.”

There are no specific bike routes on Tech’s campus, but there are 60 miles of campus sidewalks — and cyclists are allowed to ride on about 90 percent of these sidewalks, he said.

Craig Cotton, a supervisor at Tech’s Transportation and Parking Services

Encouraging students, faculty and staff to ride bikes is part of an effort to balance transportation demand, Cotton said.

“We’re not at capacity on our parking system yet, but we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve,” Cotton said. “We are really close to capacity on our busing system during the meat of the day.”

Tech offers two bicycle clinics each year, distributing safety pamphlets and hosting professional bike mechanics to inspect and adjust students’ bikes, Cotton said. A safety program is in the works to launch by 2016.

“We are in the process of doing or putting together a more global comprehensive-type safety program which would include not only bicyclists but motorist and pedestrians, too,” Cotton said. “Because really, the awareness isn’t just about bicycles.”

Thirty-one Tech students respondended to a SurveyMonkey poll about how they commute to class. The results are presented here.

To stay safe, bikers must obey traffic laws. Cotton said the campus enforces state biking laws such as using signals and equipping bikes with reflectors.

The first few weeks of the fall semester are usually spent educating cyclists during bike traffic stops, he said, but as the school year moves forward, more biking citations are issued.

And parking a bike is much easier than parking your car—not to mention it’s free.

This school year, new bike parking is available at the southeast end of Holden Hall at the end of the summer, Cotton said. There are plans to consolidate bike racks and add brick to bike parking areas, so bikers don’t have to park in dirt. Additional campus bike parking may be constructed in the future.

“Obviously, money has to be there,” Cotton said.

But if you leave your bike on campus over extended breaks, do not expect to find it upon your return. Tech staff picked up 560 abandoned bikes this summer, selected 350 that needed little to no maintenance, and offered them to students, faculty and staff at the beginning of the fall semester.

The bikes sold out within 18 hours, suggesting that Tech’s efforts to encourage biking are paying off. But more work lies ahead, Cotton said.

He added: “The more students we can get to bicycle or to ride a bicycle to class, the less burden on the parking and the busing systems.”