Daily Illini published an article on the recent cyclist collision with an MTD bus by Transit Plaza: https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2023/02/13/mtd-campus-resources-res...

MTD, campus resources respond to recent cyclist collision
   

Sidney Malone

A student races past on a bike on South Wright Street in one of the University’s many bike lanes.

By Layli Nazarova, Staff Writer
February 13, 2023

Following the recent incident on Wright Street involving a cyclist and an MTD bus, MTD said that the bus “was operating safely” and not at fault for the collision. 

“We do not know what caused the cyclist to swerve toward the side of the bus, but we do know the bus was operating safely outside the bike lane and did not take action to cause contact,” said Amy Snyder, chief of staff at MTD, in an email. 

According to Snyder, road safety is one of the MTD’s top priorities which they achieve through training. 

“MTD maintains an extensive training program to on-board and retrain current Operators to drive safely in our busy campus environment,” Snyder said. “It involves classroom curriculum, simulated environments and on-the-street instruction.”

The overall number of bike crashes has significantly decreased over the past few years, according to the Illinois Climate Action Plan portal. That may be due to improvements in bike infrastructure on campus, according to Steven Breitwieser, a spokesperson for University Facilities & Services.

“In the last 10-15 years, the University has improved bicycle infrastructure to provide a safer, more convenient and enjoyable experience for bicyclists,” Breitwieser said. “These efforts emphasize better connecting the campus bike network with surrounding communities.”

Most of those infrastructure changes are a part of the University’s Campus Bicycle Master Plan published in 2014.

However, the accidents still occur and, according to Campus Bike Center Coordinator Jacob Benjamin, students continue to express concerns regarding road safety. 

“Most of our education really is face to face with folks that come in,” Benjamin said. “Generally, the safety concerns are related to being able to be seen well at night.”

To increase safety and spread awareness among cyclists, the Campus Bike Center provides various resources. 

“We try to educate folks more on defensive bike riding, as well as predictable bike riding,” Benjamin said. “There’s the Illinois bike safety quiz that the League of American cyclists puts out. We encourage everybody to take that. And we have a bike map that was put together and distributed by Champaign County bikes that we’ve been giving out, and this has all the safe bike routes listed on it.”

Regarding road safety concerns, Campus Bike Center recommends avoiding “busy” streets on campus, considering the increased traffic. 

“We’d certainly recommend riding on quieter side streets and less busy major streets because traffic is just a lot higher,” Benjamin said.

According to Benjamin, bike and road safety depends on both the awareness of cyclists and infrastructure on campus. 

 “Infrastructure improvements are always welcome, but awareness and education about how to ride safely is important as well,” Benjamin said. “Transportation systems are kind of an ecosystem of cars, cyclists, pedestrians, buses — all play a role in creating a safe transportation system.”

laylin2@dailyillini.com

1/25 Meeting Recap:

• Sarthak introduces the project to Ethan in their first meeting via zoom. They are expected to develop the planning process for the development of the 2024 Bicycle Plan, which is expounding upon the former 2014 Bicycle Plan. Next school year, Ethan would work alongside Sarthak in developing the plan itself. 
• Firstly, Sarthak wants Ethan to read all of the relevant readings for understanding the context of this project, especially the 2014 Bicycle Plan and report/updates on that plan since then. Sarthak introduces the iCAP portal to Ethan and grants him access to the reports/to make edits to the developing projects. 
• Ethan to start the readings before the next meeting on (2/1).

2/1 Meeting Recap

• Sarthak and Ethan met via zoom to discuss Ethan’s progress in familiarizing himself with the 2014 Bicycle Plan and its other relevant documents and reports. 
• Ethan read 30 pages of the 2014 Plan so far, and had two questions for Sarthak. One was in regard to the scope of the 2024 Plan’s recommendations. Specifically, Ethan was wondering to what degree will their 2024 Plan discuss campus connectivity with the greater Champaign-Urbana areas. Sarthak said that he would need to get a confirmation from his colleagues, but he believes that the scope of this plan should only encompass the campus district. This considers the main campus, but also the adjacent northwest area that contains mostly residential and commercial spaces. This campus district stretches to the northbound-southbound railroad tracks west of campus and up to University Avenue. 
• Ethan’s second question was in regard to the goals listed in the executive summary versus the desired outcomes listed in the introduction. The executive summary lists the primary goals of the entire plans while the introduction’s outcomes describe the specific goals of the bikeway network improvement project. 
• Sarthak shows Ethan how to post updates to the 2024 Bicycle Plan on the iCAP portal. Ethan will begin posting his weekly updates based on their weekly meetings there. 
• Sarthak advised Ethan to finish reading the 2014 Bicycle Plan by next week’s meeting (2/8) and to finish the rest of the relevant readings/reports by the end of the month (February). 

Sarthak and Ethan met in person to discuss Ethan’s updates on his readings on the former 2014 Bicycle Plan. He has completed his review of the 2014 Plan and will delve into the progress reports and updates reports published in 2019, 2022, and 2023 for next week to see which projects have been completed, changed, or left unfinished indefinitely. He will also review the feedback from the League of American Bicyclists based on the University’s Bronze Bicycle Friendly Status awarded in 2019. The goal is to receive Gold Status this August, if not in 2027 because the review is done every 4 years. A main aspect of the 2024 Bicycle Plan will be to achieve Platinum Status by 2031. Sarthak also assured Ethan that many of the projects of the 2014 plan have since been completed which will be seen in the update/progress reports. Ethan’s to do list is to finish his readings relevant to the 2024 Bicycle Plan, such as the update reports. Also, he must begin preparing to consolidate the work he and Sarthak have done. This will then be presented to Sarthak’s bosses which will focus on the plan for this semester and the next two semesters.

All, Last week we had some ominous weather that didn’t turn out to be much. Our visits were down but only barely—I expected a bit of a nosedive that didn’t materialize. Champaign Cycle donated some kids bikes and box store bikes, which is always appreciated. We had another person start a B-a-B.

This week I’ve got another interview, some new hires starting, and a staff meeting on Thursday night. I’ll also draft a B-a-B/Membership flyer to better explain those programs as there’s been some consistent misunderstanding/miscommunication on that front.

The numbers:

Visitors: 34
Sales: $933.50
Bike (refurb): 2 for $375
Memberships: 6 for $180
Tires/tubes: 5 for $50

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator

Please see attached the ridership overview for the month of August - December 2022

By mutual consent, the capstone project was terminated with Aparna Padmakumar for her help with the Bicycle Friendly University application. 

Sarthak Prasad met with Marc Doussard, the Master of Urban Planning (MUP) Director, to talk about MUP capstone and how their students can assist with this project. Marc said they can bring this project to the class int he fall 2023 and spring 2024 semesters and assist in the update.

Bumsoo Lee also mentioned that he has an undergraduate student who is very interested in helping out with this project in the spring 2023 semester.