The protected bike lanes by the Moody Center have turned into a parking lot for valet parking, loading and University vehicles, raising safety concerns for students who bike in these areas on campus.
The University installed protected bike lanes with the construction of the Moody Center in 2022, with the lanes running down Robert Dedman Drive by the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and the Moody Center. According to Steven Guerin, a pharmaceutical sciences graduate student who frequently bikes around campus, cars and trucks have consistently parked in the bike lanes since the stadium was built and the lanes were constructed.
According to a University spokesperson’s statement, UT’s Planning, Design and Construction department said that contractors are using the loading zone inside the bike lane for summer construction. They said all the construction near the stadium will be demobilized by the end of August.
Guerin said the bike lanes are also sometimes used as a valet parking lot for the University of Texas Club events at the stadium. He also said when trucks or large vehicles are parked in the lanes, they become completely unusable.
“It could really dissuade someone from wanting to bike around if you have a car parked in this lane and you have to hop (off the curb) into a lane of traffic to get around that,” Guerin said. “For me, it’s not that it’s the end of the world. It’s an irritation, but I think for a lot of other people, I could see this being a problem.”
Erika Carlson, a pharmacology and toxicology graduate student, said she bikes on campus almost every day and notices the bike lanes are blocked off around half the time she sees them. Carlson said she wishes people driving were more aware when pulling into bike lanes.
“(People are) just waiting in the bike lane, I’ve noticed that especially on Dean Keeton, because I am biking on that road quite often and people will just pull over and they’ll be dropping someone off or waiting,” Carlson said. “It forces me to have to merge into a pretty busy street, like multiple lanes of traffic, and going down the hill, so it just feels like a bit more of a dangerous situation.”
Guerin said although it seems like the University is interested in getting more people to bike around campus, with events like an annual Bike to UT day, more work should be done.
“I do wish that (the University) would spend a little bit more effort actually thinking about the infrastructure that cyclists have to use … and (using) a little bit more enforcement,” Guerin said.
