Will Duke Renew Their Bicycle Friendly University Status?
Written by David Bradway
The Bicycle Friendly University (BFU℠) program recognizes universities for creating a more bikeable campus and provides the roadmap and technical assistance to create great campuses for cycling. The program is run by the League of American Bicyclists, a 501(c)(3) organization working through education, advocacy, and promotion to create safer roads and stronger communities.
Triangle Area BFUs
There are several universities in the Research Triangle region that have been awarded BFU status. BFU Silver has been earned by Duke University, NC State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while BFU Bronze status was awarded to North Carolina Central University. See the whole list here. I’m going to dive into Duke’s history as a BFU, but if you have information about NCSU, UNC, or NCCU, add it in the comments!
Duke’s BFU Rating and Recent Progress
Duke still has a photo featured prominently on the BFU website, but as of 2022 there are no sharrows on Campus Drive and there are lots of storm drains in the gutter/bike shoulder.
Duke was awarded BFU Bronze in 2011 and was upgraded to Silver in 2016, but there has not been a renewal application since then, and thus according to Alyssa Proudfoot, Membership & Program Assistant at the League of American Bicyclists, Duke’s BFU status has lapsed. Let’s review the feedback provided in the response to Duke’s 2016 BFU application and see how things are going in 2022:
The first program that the BFU response lauded was the Zagster Bike share program. (See the original announcement in the Duke Chronicle). Even long before Zagster ultimately folded during COVID, their bikes were gone from the Duke campus. All that remains of the program are the bike racks in the original four locations.
Duke’s former Zagster Bike Share Program
In a similar vein of micro-mobility, early 2018 brought to Durham a flurry of dockless rental bikes from Lime, Spin, and Ofo, all of which later ceased operations or pivoted to e-scooters. Nowadays, e-scooters can be found on campus, but Duke limits how many can be placed on campus and where people can ride and park them.
Another program that the BFU response praised was Duke’s Annual Bicyclist Appreciation Breakfast. Reasonably, this event has been on hiatus on campus since COVID. In 2020 and 2021 many university students and employees were away from campus or working from home, but there were still many hospital employees who biked to work through the whole pandemic. The appreciation breakfast was always outside and socially distanced. Who doesn’t deserve appreciation more than frontline medical staff? Maybe this event will return on Bike to Work Day 2022. Looking at you, Duke Parking and Transportation TDM…
The BFU feedback also praised an active email listserv, forum, and surveys for commuter input. None of this seems to be currently active. I looked for listservs and found this one was dead and this related one was inactive. Duke Parking and Transit and TDM aren’t on social media (for fear of trolls and public complaints?). They should have a presence on Instagram and Twitter for timely updates and since much of the bike, ped, safe streets, and vision zero advocacy discussions happen there now compared to email and forums.
Finally, BFU feedback praised Duke for hiring a consultant to prepare its first Campus Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan. It’s a decent plan, posted below, but Duke hasn’t made implementation a priority or put things into motion to address the needs identified. A big failure that has stifled Duke-Durham transit relations and public goodwill was the 2018 death (murder) of the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit (DOLRT).
In total, Duke hasn’t made significant strides and has failed to live up to the promises of its 2016 application to maintain its positive 2011-2016 trajectory. In retrospect, the 2015 UnPark Yourself Challenge seems like the highwater mark of alternative transit momentum, with interest waning even before the onset of COVID. There is still time to turn things around, but with climate change accelerating, the stakes continue to rise.
Neighborhood Traffic Calming Grants
Duke’s Office of Durham and Community Affairs has awarded two grants (one complete, and one in progress) to neighborhoods adjacent to Duke. These grants are funded (partially?) by contributions from Duke employees, deducted from their paychecks. These programs, in collaboration with Bike Durham, have goals of improving safety for pedestrians and cyclists by calming (slowing) traffic in the Burch Avenue, Old West Durham, and Watts Hospital-Hillandale communities. This is progress and should be celebrated. But a little bit of Duke Doing Good does not make up for a little bit of Duke Doing Bad (DOLRT) or a lot of Duke Doing Nothing. Perhaps the majority (certainly the plurality) of the traffic in Durham, especially in these neighborhoods, is traveling to and from Duke. The whole reason traffic calming is needed is that too many Duke students, employees, patients, and visitors travel in single-occupancy vehicles. Sure, paint the crosswalks, curb extensions, and sharrows, but is it just lipstick on a pig? Paint is not protection. Fix the pig. Duke should strive to become the model university in the Southeast. As a cautionary example, even BFU Platinum Colorado State University had a tragic death before forming a commission and adopting the first Vision Zero plan at a university. Duke, don’t wait for a tragedy to force your hand. Reach for BFU Gold and Vision Zero preemptively.
Charting a Path and Getting There
If Duke decided to reach for BFU Gold Status, what would it take?
It should implement the recommendations in the 2016 BFU Silver feedback and the Bike and Walk plan they themselves commissioned, which are both posted below. Duke has shown that it can muster serious action when it decides to. It got serious about carbon, and it could work to reduce its employees’ transportation-related carbon emissions by properly embracing biking and walking. Beyond zero-carbon, Duke could aim for zero traffic deaths and injuries as the first Vision Zero university in North Carolina. Vision Zero goals have been adopted by the Durham and Chapel Hill governments but not any area universities.
Is it time for a joint Tobacco Road Vision Zero campaign? Who’s ready?