Binghamton University, the Southern Tier and upstate New York as a whole are currently in the middle of a makeover. It is happening under a program called the New York Upstate Revitalization Initiative, which is geared toward reinvigorating upstate’s economy and communities. One of the plans is to create a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly route from Downtown Binghamton to BU’s campus.
The project is already halfway to completion — the pedestrian bridge is finished and they are completing the pathway over Vestal Parkway at the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge. All they have left is to complete the path on the south side of Route 434 that will lead to Murray Hill Road, the road behind the East Gym. This is great news for all the cyclists on campus, and for all the others who are becoming more and more infuriated over the lack of parking on campus. However, there seems to be a few flaws no one has discussed.
Downtown, not unlike BU, has a parking problem. It is very difficult to find a parking spot, especially during the daytime. So, it will definitely be nice to be able to bike Downtown in order to escape the parking fiasco that it is. Except that, currently, there are only two designated bike lock-ups. After a quick call to the city of Binghamton’s Planning, Housing & Community Development department, I discovered that there are no plans in the future to build more. It was even recommended by the Broome County Parks and Recreation Department that I just attach my bike to a guardrail or light post.
This is geared solely to people who live Downtown and have a place to store their bikes, not to the people who live on the other side of the bridges. It seems lazy on the city’s part, because if you are receiving money to develop a bike pathway that is obviously meant to be used, then people using it will need places to store their bikes. It’s something that should have been incorporated into the plan to begin with. This will make Downtown less aesthetically pleasing because, more than likely, it will look like BU’s campus, where people lock up their bikes in any spot they desire. It also has the potential for someone to injure themselves if they don’t see a bike locked up to a light post or guardrail. It may even interfere with handicapped-accessible railings that could affect a person’s mobility. BU should be more prepared since it already has its extra lock-ups, right?
BU already knows it needs to update its bicycle and pedestrian routes on campus, for it is written in the University Facilities Master Plan. It highlights the less aesthetically pleasing and dangerous lock-up problem I already discussed, as well as the dangers of bikes that either share a path with motor vehicles or with pedestrians. It also recommends that bike paths should be created in tandem with the roadways of the University and, possibly, make some of the roads exclusive to personal motor vehicles.
However, we are almost halfway through the 10 years that the Facilities Master Plan outlines, and this issue isn’t yet addressed. As more cars are predicted to come to campus with the University’s plan to have 20,000 students by 2020, as seen with the new additional parking, it will only make it more dangerous for bike riders. Therefore, if BU and the city of Binghamton are on board with this project, as their media declares, then they create bike-friendly areas. If creating a bike-friendly area is followed through with, it will reduce the congestion of campus, make the campus more environmentally friendly and may even incentivize a healthier lifestyle for faculty and students as an alternative to those who are sick of waiting on buses or waiting at stoplights to get to campus.
Josh Hummell is a senior double-majoring in classical and Near Eastern studies and history.