The U is set to review the language of a controversial proposed ban on recreational bicycle and skateboard riding on campus next month.
The policy, passed by the Academic Senate on May 6, would prohibit recreational use of bicycles, skateboards or any other non-motorized vehicles not related to university activities. The Senate vote was tie decided by Senate president Robert Fujihami, said Allyson Mower, the Senate president-elect.
The Academic Senate Executive Committee will discuss the language of the policy at its meeting on June 17. Originally the Board of Trustees was going to hear the bill at its meeting on May 14, leaving the senate to review the policy in the fall. The policy will not take effect until passed by the Board of Trustees.
?The Senate had basically voted to approve it as-is with the caveat that not everyone agreed with the use of the wording ?strictly prohibited,?? Mower said. ?That wording is what the Senate wanted to be revisited in the fall. I think that wording along with the definition of recreation and commuting.?
Communications director Keith Sterling said the U administration in conjunction with the Senate made the decision to review the policy earlier.
?They?re going to take a close look at this language and I imagine refine it a litte bit because members of the Academic Senate had expressed publicly some concern about the severity of the language,? Sterling said.
As of May 10, Mower had not seen or heard any proposed changes.
The idea to revise the policy came from complaints about bikes and skateboards on campus.
?Their rational for revising the policy initially was because of the significant increase in the use of bikes and skateboards and other non-motorized devices on campus and then because of some safety issues and some damage that had happened to university property,? Mower said.
The policy would only apply to students, faculty or others associated with the U. Visitors on campus fall under a state administrative rule similar to the U policy currently in place.
U Police chief Scott Folsom said U Police receives many complaints about skateboarders.
?What he have is a continuing problem with skateboarders who behaving in ways that are generating a lot of complaints some of it is rude behavior quite often it is safety behavior they?re not yielding to people, having close calls or actually colliding with people,? Folsom said. ?I?d say that the great preponderance of the calls we get are about skateboarders as opposed to bicyclists, but we do get occasional complaints about bicyclists flying down campus, of cutting somebody off or coming so close as to frighten people when they go by.?
Folsom said the current policy is not sufficient.
?I?ve personally talked to skateboarders who say [the penalty is] not very much and if you get a ticket it?s just the price of being able to skateboard. It doesn?t appear to be of enough consequence to make people change their behavior,? Folsom said.
U Police does not issue many skateboarding citations. Folsom said riders are often gone before officers arrive.
?If you?re just out walking around campus, you step out of a building and you?re confronted by a skateboader or who hits you or knocks you down or something by the time you get to a phone, call us they?re hundreds of yards or blocks away,? Folsom said. ?We catch folks from time to time, but most of the time they?ve left the area by the time we get there. so we don?t issue a whole lot of citations but a few.?
Alma Allred, director of commuter services said a new policy is needed to ?safeguard the public.?
Allred said he rides a bicycle around campus and often has to avoid skateboarders. He said one reason the U needs a policy is people riding and walking who wear headphones and are oblivious to their surroundings.
?If everyone had been using their head there would be no need to [have a policy],?Allred said.
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