Bikes and cars: the Higher Learning (Comments: 0)

Thanks to Julie for her report (see below) on biking through the obstacle course that the western fringe of the MCC Brighton campus has become. The last time I ventured through this area (let’s call it a “destruction zone,” since it’s a lot more about making things car-and-truck-friendly than anything else), I had to watch my “step” almost constantly. Still, the rough-and-ready asphalt path along the W side of East Henrietta Road did provide some fun.

But if I had to negotiate that mess every day, or even once a week, I’d be tearing out my hair and hurling imprecations at the Petro-gods, who clearly rule the roost at MCC, DOT, and various local governments. Of all the colleges/universities I’ve attended or taught at, MCC probably has the worst record of inattention to pedestrians and cyclists. For a long, long time (the Brighton campus turns 40 this year), bikers and other transpo-orphans have been the object of a de facto discrimination campaign. Sometimes as you wend your way between the city line and the campus, which from a distance looks like a very downscale Oz surrounded by vast defenses in the form of parking lots, you feel like The Fugitive braving hostile territory and inching toward vindication – “I made it alive! And I’m not guilty!”

I hope the ongoing reconstruction improves the situation. In some ways, it will have to: current DOT guidelines call for accommodations for pedestrians/cyclists whenever practicable. Indeed, the specific NYSDOT plan for this section of 15A calls for “bicycle lanes throughout.” But don’t expect MCC to turn into UC Davis. I’ve monitored the changes for years now, and the only options I’ve seen seriously considered are those that will sooner or later (more likely sooner) substantially increase traffic volumes around the campus. Bikers will find better conditions, but the campus, which is shortchanged on transit, too, will still be the academic equivalent of a Wal-Mart.

We should remember, too, that what’s happening around MCC Brighton is part of larger, darker picture. Brighton is becoming heavily sprawlified east of the campus, where the last vestiges of dairy farming have given way to ever-proliferating office “parks,” a land-hungry megachurch, and (soon) a gated community next to the Erie Canal. The canal trail and a couple of spurs (short trails through Meridian Centre Park and Brighton Town Park, plus the Lehigh Valley Trail, N Branch) are among the best biking spots on the planet, or at least this little corner of it. But overall, regarding the bicycle, Brighton and partners like NYSDOT have taken away more than they’ll ever give back.