Bicycle, Skateboard Grievance to Chancellor’s Office?

University fails to respond within time lines?

Apparently the university has failed to respond to the level two hearing of the skateboard, bicycle grievance. This clears the way for the union to file this grievance at the Chancellor’s Office. According to California State University Employees Union Labor Relations Representative Michael H. Hejazi, “The response is late. I will appeal to Level 3.” The next step after level 3 would be arbitration.

UPDATE: Both parties, by mutually agreement, have extended the Level 2 response time-line on the Campus Bike Safety Grievance to Monday May 19, 2008.
[Click here to see more related photographs]

[Copy of Grievance Here]

Email to University Police Chief Barnes

My Email to Chief Barnes

I know during our recent phone call you said you and your officers had not seen or reported much dangerous activity or unsafe practices on the part of operators of non-motorized vehicles including skateboards, bicycles and razors. At 4:35 pm on May 5 I saw these youths doing acrobatics on the railings of the east side of Clark Hall. I called the UPD dispatcher and the call was logged on my cell phone at 4:35pm. Since it was time for me to go off work, I went back into the building, got ready to go home, took my camera and went out of the building. I had expected to see an officer there since it is maybe 750 feet from there to UPD. Since I saw no officer I started taking pictures. I kept taking pictures. I shot about 25 photos until I finished my roll of film. (Yes, I still shoot film.)

I then walked over to the bike corral and got my bicycle and rode home (circumnavigating SJSU of course.) I never saw any officers and I guess it is no wonder they never saw any dangerous activity or unsafe practices on the part of operators of non-motorized vehicles that day.

[Click here to see more related photographs]

[Copy of Grievance Here]

More on the safety issue

More on the safety issue
People chaining their bikes to stairs and fire exits is a relatively common occurance at SJSU. I have several photos of this in my growing photo archive.

I saw the article in today’s Spartan Daily. While not accurate in every detail on some things, I think it caught the spirit of the issue.

In the article University Police Department Chief Barnes reportedly said he had not seen or heard about many safety issues linked with non-motorized vehicles that convince him to revisit the policy. According to the Daily; “There hasn’t been any factual evidence that we can see that would cause us to change our mind,” he said. “I understand that some people would not like to have them riding, but from an enforcement standpoint, based on the numbers and issues we’ve seen, we don’t see any reason why we would change the policy.”

I know this may be a misquote, so I will give him the benefit of a doubt. Perhaps you may wish to send him this photo and the link to the others as well. His email is: Andre.Barnes@sjsu.edu

Today was a great day for a bike ride. I rode my bike again today. After riding about eleven miles to SJSU I did not see any reason to ride the extra few hundred feet to my desk. I rode around SJSU on the public streets and parked my bike in one of the many bike corrals around campus and walked to my desk.

[Click here to see more related photographs]

[Copy of Grievance Here]

It is about safety!

It is about safety and health and not alternative transportation
In my opinion the recent change, by university president Don Kassing, to adopt a policy that allows the use of skateboards, razors and bicycles in the campus interior has the goal to encourage alternative transportation. This is good, in principle. But, I think this administration has been a bit too quick to decide and has let health and safety take a back seat to lofty goals and “good” principles. The end does not justify the means.

On the morning of Feb. 20, 2008 I was outside of Clark Hall taking pictures in the rain. A skateboarder scooted by and then he slipped and fell in front of me. His skateboard shot across the concrete and hit a pedestrian in the ankle. It was a glancing blow. The pedestrian was not injured. The fact nobody was hurt, this time, is not the point. It could have been more serious. What if the skateboard had hit a pedestrian more squarely? What if the pedestrian had been elderly or disabled.What if the pedestrian had tripped and been injured? That, in my opinion is what this is about. This is about the assumption of unneeded risk by the university and exposing the campus population to danger for the sake of lofty goals and “good” principles.

For employees, the university is a work place. Employees are entitled by law (and contract) to a safe work environment. Students are entitled to a safe campus. Folks with disabilities are entitled to have a university that is not made inaccessible by dangers, obstacles and trip hazards. Tax payers are entitled to have state agencies not take unnecessary risks and exposure to lawsuit for the sake of pursuing lofty goals and “good” principles. We cannot accept management using unsound means that threaten the safety and health of the people of the state of California.

[Click here to see more related photographs]

[Copy of Grievance Here]

On Encouraging Alternative Transportation

Editorial:

We do need to find alternatives to fossil fueled based transportation, but we cannot sacrifice safety in the process. A friend of mine just had a close call today with a bicyclist riding his bike inside of Clark Hall. My friend said, “that was scary.”

If the university wants to encourage alternative transportation there are things that can be done, inexpensively like providing shower facilities to faculty and staff who ride their bikes to work.

In the short run, turning the campus into a free-for-all for bicyclists, skateboard riders and people using razors may seem like a cheap way to encourage alternative transportation, but that is not the case. Just wait until the first crash, until the first person gets hurt real bad and or killed and then sues the university. The university cannot plead ignorance. They have been warned. The staff employees union has filed a health and safety grievance and has provided the university with plenty of evidence about the hazardous conditions here. The entire campus is a job site for the people who work here and the university, under labor law, has a legal and a contractual obligation to provide a safe work place.

It is time for the university to stop taking the cheap way out and to get serious about encouraging alternative transportation. No solution that endangers the employees of the university and other campus community members is acceptable.

[Click here to see more related photographs]

[Copy of Grievance Here]

Grievance seeks bike ban at SJSU

Grievance proposes bicycle & skateboard ban on campus A health and safety grievance is now awaiting a decision that asserts that the current policy (as well as its lack of enforcement) regarding the use of non-motorized vehicles (including bicycles & skateboards) in the internal areas of campus poses a threat to the safety of union represented university employees. The union is seeking the ban of the use of non-motorized vehicles in the internal areas of campus and proper enforcement of such a ban.

What is a grievance? A grievance is an allegation by the union, or a union represented employee, that the university has failed to abide by it’s contractual obligations. The California State University Employees Union (CSUEU) is the union representing most staff employees at SJSU. The grievance process has a series of escalations including binding arbitration.

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Motoring on SJSU Campus

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HR Surveying Staff

Email sent from HR to staff
This afternoon an Email was sent by Maria Rivera to university staff employees. In my own opinion, not speaking as a union rep, I hope all staff members take the time to complete this survey. I hope the response is representational of the campus community. If you are a staff member and did not get the Email, I would recommend contacting HR. Here is the intro to the Email:

We want San José State University to be an exciting and rewarding place to work. Help us realize our vision of a world-class work environment by completing the 2007 San José State University Employee Engagement Survey. This survey is your opportunity to help shape the future of the university and improve your own work experience in the process. Your feedback will be compiled and used to guide further positive changes across the university. It is critical that you complete the survey by March 7, 2008 for your opinion to be counted.

Also, I hope HR showed the union the proper respect by showing the union this survey and discussing its release prior to sending it out.

More about bike riding on sidewalks

Here is another source of information about the dangers of riding bicycles on sidewalks, as is common on the sidewalks at SJSU. This information is from a UK website regarding the London Cycling Campaign in Hackney for the London borough of Hackney Footway Cycling Officers Group. According to this source, “Aultmann-Hall found that footway riding has crash rates 40 times that of on-road.”

[Photos of bicycle riders on and around SJSU]

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Is it safe to ride at SJSU

Is it safe to ride bikes on campus sidewalks without helmets?
The issue is one the university has to decide. I am doing my best to be sure the decision is made by them in full awareness of the related facts I can find.

According to a study by William E. Moritz, Ph.D. of the University of Washington entitled Adult Bicyclists in the U.S. presented at the Transportation Research Board’s 77th Annual Meeting, January 11-15, 1998 in Washington D.C., “A RELATIVE DANGER INDEX is calculated which shows that streets with bike lanes have a significantly lower crash rate then either major or minor streets without any bicycle facilities (38 and 56% respectively). Multi-use trails have a crash rate about 40% greater than would be expected based on the miles cycled on them while cycling on the sidewalk is extremely dangerous.” Here are related links I hope will be helpful for this discussion:

http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2005/810617.pdf

http://www.bayareatrafficsignals.org/toolbox/BikeRisk.html

http://www.iihs.org/research/fatality_facts/bicycles.html

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

http://www.johnforester.com/articles.htm

A couple of related comments I have collected:
I am reassured of the value of my helmet In June ‘06 a mechanical problem caused my chain to come off the rear derailer, a quick spin of my clipped in feet, and going only about 4 mph, I fell into a ditch on the side of the road - I couldn’t get my feet out quick enough, obviously. My head/helmet hit a large rock in the ditch and cracked my helmet. Yes, I saw stars!

~Pam

I can tell you about an incident that happened downtown. I was walking north on 4th Street (which is one way heading south) and a guy on a bike (traveling against traffic and on the sidewalk) came up behind me. He swerved around me and hit a woman who was coming out of the parking garage. He hit her hard enough to knock her over. She was dazed, but OK. The whole thing could have been avoided had he been riding properly, but that’s just my opinion.

~Mary

Steve,
I ride my bike to EVC (sometimes), using a road around the edge of campus to get to my office. I am opposed to cycling through the core of the EVC campus. When I was a student at UCSB, I road a bike and objected to not being allowed to ride through the campus. (UCSB actually allowed this, in bike lanes, at low speeds, with stop signs where the lanes crossed walking paths. I was objecting to the speed and stop signs. Hey, I was “younger” then.) In researching police accident records for a Public Speaking course assignment, trying to gather evidence for my position, I learned of the many bike/pedestrian collisions and changed my mind. Bikes are vehicles and belong with other vehicles, not pedestrians! This is what we teach in the ACTC Academy. Stay off sidewalks, off walkways, out of crosswalks, unless you are walking your bike!

Feel free to use this where you think appropriate, along with my LCI #.

Harry Lichtbach LCI #1047
Almaden Cycle Touring Club
San Jose, CA. USA

What is current practice at SJSU:
[Click here to see related pictures on Flickr]

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