Western Front - 1996 April 9

              INSIDE:
• Features, 9-12
• Sports, 13-16
• Opinions, 17-19
Campus clubs
offer more than the
same old t t ^
greek letters.
Pages 10 and 11
Western crew shreds Lake Samish
on its way to VICTORY Page u
Tuesday,
April 9,1996
Volume 96
Issue 1
FRONT Western Washington University Bellingham, Washington
Proposed bike ban draws criticism
1 Public bike safety forum
at noon today in FH 2
By Bobbie Egan
The Western Front
"This policy is just not work­able,"
said Bob Baker, student
and bicycle commuter. "The pro­posed
area would, in fact, ban
bikes from most of the red bricks
on campus." .
Baker initiated a meeting last
Thursday to protest the Central
Health and Safety Committee's
proposal to restrict bicycles from
central areas of campus, 24 hours
a day, seven days a week.
Sixteen frustrated students
gathered to find alternatives to
the anti-bike policy proposed by
trie safety committee, made up
primarily of administrators and
faculty.
The group plans to write an
alternative proposal before the
April 15 comment period dead­line.
The proposal would ulti­mately
allow bikes access to all
of campus. The alternate propos­al
includes plans to educate bicy­clists
and establish rules of cour­tesy.
The ban will be the topic of
discussion at a bicycle safety
public forum at noon today in
Fraser Hall 2.
The safety committee drafted
the proposal and presented it to
students at a public forum March
5. The proposal was drafted by
the committee after more than a
year of studying the problem of
speeding bicyclists, skateboard­ers
and in-line skaters.
After the public forum, the
safety committee's proposal will
go to Business/Financial Affairs
Vice President George Pierce for
review and then to' President
Karen Morse and the President's
Council.
If the council approves the pro­posal,
it will be sent to Olympia
to change the existing
Washington Administrative
Code.
"The committee has mulled
this over for a year and has
:^.I.-^::,•.,>-•;.-.-.^5^-ft ~r y ••. * _ Front/Brad Benfield
A student bikes through an area that could be closed off for him if the proposed ban is passed.
worked at how to implement var­ious
policies and this is what they
came up with," Gayle Shipley,
director of environmental health
and safety said. "This was the
best shot of the committee."
Shipley said the committee will
review student input given at the
public forum and make revisions
to reflect student concerns.
"I think the committee has
wanted all along to be as liberal
as they could, to be very democ­ratic.
Policy tends to feel very
restrictive," she said.
In addition to restricting bikes
to outer parts of campus, the pro­posal
would ban skateboarding
and in-line skating from all parts
See Ban, page 3
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Kelly Jackson
By Steve Mohundro
The Western Front
Beginning Nov. 18, bus route changes
should bring more buses through campus
each hour, direct connections from campus
to key locations in Whatcom county and
limited service on Sundays, if approved at
an April 17 meeting.
Months of planning by Whatcom
Transportation Authority has resulted in a
plan including the elimination of routes
with low ridership and increased service on
the busiest routes. WTA General Manager
Marty Minkoff said this reallocation of
resources was necessary because WTA has
no extra revenue to increase service.
Sunday service, more buses on both the
3B and 7B routes each hour and interlining,
or direct connections between routes heav­ily
traveled by students are among the
changes proposed.
More than 1,000 students ride WTA
buses daily, not including Campus Express
riders, Rich Nicholson, WTA transportation
service specialist said.
He said the changes to routes going
through Western came in response to con­cerns
generated by both students and WTA.
At a public hearing April 4 in the
Whatcom County Courthouse, more than
70 county residents commented on the pro­posal
— many about specific changes to
Blaine and Sudden Valley service.
At the meeting, Carl Root, Western's
Transportation Management Program coor­dinator,
read a letter written by Western
Vice President for Business and Financial
Affairs George Pierce expressing the uni­versity's
support of the changes.
Root said the proposal was positive for
the county and for Western, and hoped the
Campus Express will continue next year as
a supplement to the WTA campus service.
"We feel that the (planning committee)
did a really good job in fulfilling
(Western's) needs," Root said.
Nicholson said Western emphasized a
need for a connection between campus and
the Fairhaven Transportation Center — a
depot for Greyhound Bus Lines and
Amtrak trains close to the Alaska Ferry
Terminal — and that the proposed changes
to route 7B meet that need.
A potential service on Sundays to lessen
the need for those working on campus to
bring a car was also addressed.
Gordon said the proposal addresses the
problems WTA saw in its campus service,
including the need to transfer downtown,
See WTA, page 6