At the SU Senate meeting last Wednesday, administrators from Washington University Facilities explained the logistics of a bike plan that has been in the works for more than a year, with the purpose of soliciting student feedback. Students at the meeting had overwhelmingly negative reactions to the plan, which would widen some pathways on campus with the heaviest traffic and also includes nodes, or places where a large number of students can leave their bikes.

These measures are not necessarily flawed. What concerns us is that the administration did not seek student input on substantial parts of the bike plan. When the changes were initially proposed last April, Student Life responded similarly to students at the Senate session by publishing a staff editorial expressing concern about the plan. However, the editorial expressed hope that with student input, the plan could be tweaked to better fit the bike culture on campus and benefit both bikers and pedestrians.

Last April, a focus group was created to facilitate discussion between the administration and students, and we commend this effort to involve the student body. Given the Senate’s reaction to the plan on Wednesday night, however, it appears that more dialogue is needed and that the University must take student input more seriously.

The focus group, which is comprised of less than 10 students, bikers and non-bikers alike, offered a number of suggestions at group meetings. Student input was welcomed on decisions about where to place the nodes and how many bikes they should be able to hold, but opinions were not solicited about the actual implementation of the plan or the rules that would come along with it. Now, the SU representatives in the focus group are trying to slow the plan down, in keeping with the opinions expressed in the Senate meeting last week.

Based on the senators’ reaction, we see a disconnect between the administration and the student body. This echoes the smoking ban implementation of last year, which also lacked student input. The student body was not notified properly about the possibility of the ban and was given very little chance to express its opinions. Initially, the focus group appeared to move away from this trend of disconnect between policy implementation and the opinions of the student body. However, the concerns that have arisen from the process indicate that the same basic problem exists.

Going forward, we want to see greater student input in whatever form possible. Since work on the bike plan has already begun, it will be difficult for students to enact significant change. We encourage the University to solicit real student input on all parts of the plan. Even if it is impossible to affect any changes at this stage in the development, we hope that the University will learn from Senate’s reaction and seek out student opinions on substantial issues in the future.