304B Gordon- TTU Lubbock, TX 79406 April 6 th, 2011 Mr. Tyler Patton Office of the President 4952 Matador Avenue Lubbock, TX 79413 Dear Tyler Patton: Congratulations on your election as President of SGA! I know you will continue to lead and improve the campus of Texas Tech and serve the student body very well. I love the campus at Texas Tech and, as a fellow student, want it to be very safe. One issue I dealt with recently was bike safety. I wrote you an email about the incident I had in November. Dear Tristan Griffin and Tyler Patton, My name is Michael Bates. I am a freshman here at Texas Tech University who lives in Gordon Hall. As I was riding southbound on Akron a bus cut in front of me turning right on Broadway into memorial circle. Luckily I was able to get off my bike and begin to drag it out of the street. The back right tire of the bus rolled over my bike and continued to go on. After the incident I spoke with citi bus and police. We are still working things out. A man named Ryan approached me and he told me he would take pictures and info and said that he has also nearly been hit several times and was in communication with you all. He told me he was in contact with you all and that I could also. I am not mad or angry, however, I do want to make Texas Tech's campus safe for a students, including bicyclists. Just for drivers to be more aware or if there can be anything done by SGA that would be great. I know Ryan has a lot more info, but I just wanted to give you a glimpse of a person who it had happened to. I just know that if I did not get off the bike soon, I could have been very hurt. I know you all are doing a great job and working for this campus and with SGA. Good luck on the issue and let me know if anything comes out of it! God Bless, Michael Bates Thank you so much for getting in touch with me. I am so sorry about this situation, and I hate that your bicycle was damaged in the ordeal. I have CC'd Craig Cotton at University Parking Services so that he can review your concerns as well. We are holding a Bicycle Coordinating Committee meeting tomorrow afternoon, and I will be sure to discuss this issue with the group. Let me know if you need anything else. Keep me updated, and if you ever have ideas or concerns about making campus a safer place for cyclists, don't hesitate to visit with me. Thanks again. I hope you have a great afternoon! Tyler Patton External Vice President Due to my concern of this issue I have chosen to research it further. Two other classmates have also combined to write a proposal report on bike safety. I hope that you are further informed about the severity of the issue and that this will help you improve safety on campus. Sincerely, Michael Bates
Increasing Bicycle Safety and Awareness at Texas Tech Michael Bates, Tammy Bolton, and Niravkumar Patel
Quick Summary We are writing to you to inform you of a potential problem of bike safety on campus and encourage you to investigate this problem further. We are writing you because you are on the Student Government Association, giving you the ability to investigate this problem and solve the problem if necessary.
This is the table of contents. We ll format the header for it later. For now, just update the field codes (right click and select update field ) if you want to see how your section will be listed in the TOC. Quick Summary... 3 1. Introduction and Background... 1 3. What You Can Do... 2 5. Potential Solutions to the Problem... 4 a) Hold a seminar about bike safety and rules for bike riders.... 5 b) Hold a seminar about bike safety for car drivers.... 5 c) Distribute pamphlets that outline the rules for bike riders.... 6 d) Take action to increase bike lanes on campus.... 6 6. Evaluating Solutions... 7 7. Conclusion... 8
1. Introduction and Background We are writing to you today to inform you of a growing problem on the Texas Tech campus. We are also recommending that you conduct an independent investigation into the issue. The specific problem we are writing in regards to is the lack of bike safety on campus. In our Potential Problem section, you will find more details about this problem. We recommend that you begin an investigation into this issue to determine if it is a significant problem. The Possible Method for Investigating Potential Problem provides a detailed plan for how you could investigate the issue of bike safety further. We have also provided you with a section (Potential Solutions) that provides solutions to this issue if your investigation determines that there is a significant lack of bike safety on campus. Finally, we have also provided you with a method for how you can evaluate these solutions. This will help you determine if the solutions have increased bike safety on campus. We hope that you find this proposal report to be a helpful to you as you learn more about this problem and implement solutions. 1
2. Potential Problem As stated in the cover letter, I have personally had issues with bike safety on campus. This section will discuss specific problems which may lead to accidents. These include several modes of transportation on campus. a) Bike riders do not know rules of bike riding Bike laws are difficult to find on campus. Therefore, bike riders will not understand several key rules to riding bicycles. Bike riders need to have knowledge of the rules or accidents will happen. There are several key examples of rules bike riders need to understand. Right of way with vehicles and other biker riders Rules of stop signs and intersections How to drive defensively on campus Without understanding rules of bike safety on campus the problem will increase. Car drivers also need to understand the rules of bike riding to prevent this potential problem. b) Car drivers do not know rules of bike riding Car drivers misunderstanding or complete lack or knowledge of rules with bike riders on campus is a serious problem. Rules provide order to allow students to travel safely to and from classes. Without a clear knowledge of these, many more accidents will occur. Most students and faculty come from areas with few bike riders on the road. This means that drivers are not used to looking for bikes on campus. Drivers are used to pedestrians and other vehicles, but bikes provide an entire new element to the roads. Bikes travel at the same speed as cars and virtually become another vehicle on the road. However, they travel on different parts of the road and are difficult to predict their movements. Without rules, crashes will become even more of a problem. c) Lack of bike lanes in certain areas of campus Without bike lanes, bike riders lack the safety they need at Texas Tech. Bike lanes provide necessary protection and space bike riders need on a large college campus. However, Texas Tech lacks bike lanes in several areas on campus. From personal riding, I know that around the Student Union Building and on the road to the English building there are no bike lanes. This could be a part of the research that SGA can look into as a part of a bike safety program. Without bike lanes, car drivers lack knowledge of bike riders even being there. This leads to cutting off bicyclists in turns and leaving no room for bicyclists to ride. Conclusion If potential problems of bike safety are not handled, bike riders will feel on unsafe and be involved in accidents. Therefore, we have several recommendations for solving this issue. 2
3. What You Can Do We recommend that you conduct your own investigation into the issue of bike safety to learn more about it. You need to determine if the issue is a significant problem. As the President of the SGA, you have the duty to do what is best for all students at Texas Tech. The safety of students is and should continue to be a top priority. At the very least, this investigation would help you better understand how students feel on this issue. Conducting an investigation using this method will have many benefits for you and the student body. Allows you to learn more about bike safety on campus. Given the large number of bike riders on campus every day, this is a pressing issue. Allows you to get the opinions of students. This is a good way to for you to connect with students and build a good relationship. Will provide you positive publicity in the Daily Toreador. This positive publicity can help you later on as President of the SGA. As you can see, conducting this investigation would be very beneficial for you and the student body. You will get these benefits regardless of the conclusion you reach from your investigation. To make the investigation easy to implement, we have provided a section for a method on how exactly you can conduct it. 3
4. Possible Method for Investigating Potential Problem This section will provide specific methods of how Student Government Association could investigate the problem. These methods will include several surveys and documents to provide evidence of a serious problem. a) Examine TTU and Universities police reports on bike accidents When I was involved in my accident, several police officers came to the scene. They each took small reports and documented the incident. This process occurs with any incident involving crashes at Texas Tech. These incident reports can provide vital insight to the statistics of this problem. Over a several year period you can research many patterns of accidents. These can include patterns if Locations where incidents occurred If population increase also increases in incidents What type of vehicles were involved in the most incidents Similar research can be applied to other universities. This will show if Texas Tech is above or below average in bike safety in the nation. b) Survey bike riders on campus to gather their opinions Students need their voices to be heard. From personal reference I have heard numerous stories of near accidents or accidents happening here at Texas Tech. These students need to have an immediate place to have their voice heard. SGA provides the perfect opportunity to do this. SGA can create a service or a web source for students to state their frustrations and to make their concerns heard. This survey can be advertised in several ways. It can be advertised when students register their bicycles, when an incident occurs (given a form by the police), student orientation, and through flyers posted in all the buildings. This will make it easier to let bike riders know if they are satisfied or not with bike safety on campus. c) Survey car drivers on campus to gather their opinions The format for this survey can be very similar to the bike riders survey. In order to understand if drivers recognize bicycles enough we can do a widespread survey. This can be done quite easily each year. In order to register a vehicle for parking, it should be necessary to fill out a survey of knowledge on bike rules and recognition. This will simply set a precedent to make drivers more aware of bicycles at the beginning of each year. Conclusion Proper action for investigation needs to be taken by SGA. This includes research for patterns of incidents at Texas Tech and surveys of different groups at Tech. 4
5. Potential Solutions to the Problem This section provides possible solutions if you determine that there is a significant problem with bike safety on campus. Possible solutions include: a) Hold a seminar about bike safety and rules for bike riders. This seminar about bike safety will be required for all bike riders on campus and will be held each semester. This is an outline that you could use when conducting the informational seminars to educate and inform bike riders about bike safety on campus. Explain the rules of biking on campus and the potential dangers of not following the rules. Distribute maps of safe bike routes and highlight the areas where bikes are not safe. Discuss the dangers of riding bikes on bus routes and high traffic areas. Provide information about the excessive number of buses, vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians who are sharing the roads. Conduct a question and answer session to address bike rider s comments and concerns. A seminar will further educate bike riders of the safety rules and regulations to make bike riding on campus safer for everyone. b) Hold a seminar about bike safety for car drivers. This seminar about bike safety for car drivers will be offered every semester and will be optional. This is an outline that you could use when conducting the informational seminars to educate and inform car drivers about bike safety on campus. Provide information about safe driving on campus and the dangers of driving with a high volume of bike riders. Explain the rules of bike riding (which have been explained to bike riders). Distribute maps of roads with bike lanes and the rules of driving with bike lanes. Conduct a question and answer session to address car driver s comments and concerns. A seminar for car drivers will increase awareness and safe driving with bike riders. 5
c) Distribute pamphlets that outline the rules for bike riders. These pamphlets will be handed out around campus by SGA members to pedestrians, bike riders, car drivers, and bus drivers to provide information to everyone on campus about the rules and safety of on campus bike riders. This is an outline of some information that the SGA could include in the informational pamphlets. Basic bike riding rules and regulations Current campus bike lanes Areas where biking is not allowed Areas where biking poses greater risks Contact information for any questions or concerns These pamphlets will inform everyone on campus of bike rules and safety to increase awareness. d) Take action to increase bike lanes on campus. You could use your investigation results to recommend more bike lanes on campus. Using the information about the problems of bike safety on campus, you may find that making more bike lanes will better accommodate the growing bike population. 6
6. Evaluating Solutions After you implement your solutions, you will need to evaluate them. Regardless of which solutions you choose, you need to measure them to see if your goal has been achieved. Here are a few different ways you can evaluate your solutions: Examine the Texas Tech Police reports. Looking at the TTU Police reports will help you determine if there has been a decrease in bike accidents. If there has been a decrease, you can conclude that bike safety has increased on campus. Survey bike riders on campus again to determine if they feel safer than before. You can survey these bike riders using the same survey you gave them during your investigation of the issue. Survey car drivers on campus again to determine if they feel safer than before. Once again, you should use the same survey as the one you used in your investigation. These are just a few ways you can evaluate the solutions you implement. If these evaluations reveal that bike safety has increased on campus, the solutions are clearly working. However, if bike safety has not increased, you can conclude that the solutions have not worked. At that point, you would need to reexamine the problem and implement different solutions. 7
7. Conclusion Bike safety on campus is an important issue which should be reviewed often. We feel confident that this proposal report provides enough information to convince you to launch your own investigation about bike rider and car driver awareness and increasing the number of bike lanes to better meet the growing numbers of bikes. 8
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