I have been working to push USF administration to embrace a bikable campus master plan for the past year with little success. Our final project for this class allowed me to think a little deeper about how I would redesign my least favorite/most frequented corridor on campus - the walk/bike sidewalk between BullRun Drive and Leroy Collins Blvd. See my group's final PowerPoint presentation here.
During my first year as a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student, I lived in the Sunridge Palms Apartments on 50th Street, directly across from USF Elm Drive. I chose to commute to class by bike since I was less than a 0.5 miles from my furthest building, and I didn't even own a parking permit because I needed to save money as a broke grad student. The route I took everyday to class along USF Elm Drive to USF Apple Drive was the route I worked on for this project. It's the primary route that the thousands of students who live in housing on 50th Street take to access all of the buildings in the middle of campus around Leroy Collins, and on the west side of campus. Thousands of students utilize this one route to get to class, and since cars are routed to the north and south and there is no car cut-through from 50th St. to the middle of campus, it's actually faster to walk or bike and cut straight through this walk/bikeway.
During my first year as a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student, I lived in the Sunridge Palms Apartments on 50th Street, directly across from USF Elm Drive. I chose to commute to class by bike since I was less than a 0.5 miles from my furthest building, and I didn't even own a parking permit because I needed to save money as a broke grad student. The route I took everyday to class along USF Elm Drive to USF Apple Drive was the route I worked on for this project. It's the primary route that the thousands of students who live in housing on 50th Street take to access all of the buildings in the middle of campus around Leroy Collins, and on the west side of campus. Thousands of students utilize this one route to get to class, and since cars are routed to the north and south and there is no car cut-through from 50th St. to the middle of campus, it's actually faster to walk or bike and cut straight through this walk/bikeway.
Our project boundaries.
Unfortunately, despite its popularity, this corridor is just the worst. Not only did I startle the crap out of dozens of pedestrians every single day who didn't expect a bicycle to be zooming towards them, but I literally once saw a guy hit a middle-aged man in front of the gym on his bike, sending both of them flying to the ground. It's a dangerous and extremely stressful place to bike.
Here I am flying down the hill in front of the gym on my bike. Hundreds of pedestrians cross from a parking lot into the gym at the bottom of this hill.
Why? Mostly because this is a highly congested mixed-use route for both bicyclists and pedestrians. In the Netherlands, it is literally illegal to mix bikes and pedestrians on the same path. You heard that correctly - illegal. It makes sense; it's just like how it's illegal to mix pedestrians and cars on the same path in the United States.
This is a route where it's so congested that pedestrians walk shoulder to shoulder during the school year; a route with an east-to-west downward slope that bicycles fly down one after another; a route with not one, but three parallel sidewalks that are not demarcated for different uses so it's essentially a modal free-for-all. It's a route where there is a ton of room for improvements.
Here's an example of why this corridor is weird. Three parallel sidewalks with turf between them make for a confusing situation.
As a group, we decided to emphasize mode separation and access management for this corridor. We took out some sidewalks, added traffic signals for bikes, pedestrians, and cars at the two major intersections on this route, and created a 2-way cycle track along the southern sidewalk between Maple Drive and Leroy Collins. Finally, we created an elevated bicycle-only 2-way cycle track that would go from the Ying-Ling Stadium to Maple Drive.
This is what a two-way cycle track looks like, separated by textured pavement, marked for different modes based on color, size, and signage.
I'm really proud of what our group came up with for this corridor. Check out the PowerPoint linked above to see the details of what we proposed! Even though USF is designed like a sloppy sprawling suburb, there is a lot of room for densification and improvement in the future. By simply adding signs, traffic signals, and some paint, USF can better integrate modes, including the BullRunner along Maple Drive, bicycling, pedestrian traffic, golf carts, wheelchairs, motorchairs, and other modes like longboards and e-scooters, and segregate uses where feasible to improve the safety of its walk/bike paths and incentivize non-single-occupant-vehicle (non-SOV) use. This super important corridor would be a great place to start.