It's not exactly the safest trip to UCLA's campus if you're on a bike. Many streets leading to the Westwood, Calif., school don't have bike lanes for cyclists, and some of UCLA's bikers are fed up.
So, they're speaking out, the Daily Bruin reports, demanding safer, more accessible ways to bike to campus.
"I think the university needs to consider that a lot of people get to campus on a bicycle, and we have to do things to make sure that those students get to school safely as well," one student tells the Daily Bruin.
The report says that UCLA tried to fix the bike safety problems in 2006 with a bicycle master plan. UCLA's transportation planning and policy manager, Dave Karwaski, adds that the school has made several measures to upgrade cyclist safety and encourage the use of bikes, including an increase of bike racks on campus and updating bike parking.
"It's not like we weren't expending effort," says Karwaski, who tells the Daily Bruin that the number of cyclists at UCLA has doubled since 2006. "We need to toot our horn a little more and let people know what we're doing."
But Karwaski understands the difficulties that come with biking from off-campus locations, acknowledging the need for improvements in the commute. He encouraged the upset students to write to the university and appeal for help.
"If you have a constituency clamoring for something, it carries as much weight as a letter saying this is what UCLA thinks," Karwaski says.
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