Public Safety cuts illegally parked bikes

After a long class on the third day of the semester, Ben Fleischmann left the Math Building to hop on his bike that was safely locked to a handicap access rail outside.
Waiting for him was a group of Public Safety officers. One asked, “Is this your bike?”
About 30 bicycles were cut from handicap access rails all over campus on Wednesday by Public Safety officers, of which a majority was locked to the railing of a wheelchair access ramp outside the Math building.
Students that went to the Office of Public Safety to retrieve their bikes were fined $10, in addition to the cost of their destroyed bike locks.
Director of Public Safety Jim Lemcke said his office gets most of these complaints in the first few weeks of the semester.
“This goes on every year,” Lemcke said.

After a long class on the third day of the semester, Ben Fleischmann left the Math Building to hop on his bike that was safely locked to a handicap access rail outside.
Waiting for him was a group of Public Safety officers. One asked, “Is this your bike?”
About 30 bicycles were cut from handicap access rails all over campus on Wednesday by Public Safety officers, of which a majority was locked to the railing of a wheelchair access ramp outside the Math building.
Students that went to the Office of Public Safety to retrieve their bikes were fined $10, in addition to the cost of their destroyed bike locks.
Director of Public Safety Jim Lemcke said his office gets most of these complaints in the first few weeks of the semester.
“This goes on every year,” Lemcke said.
Sgt. Ben Gladwin said that most complaints about the bikes come from Disability Services.
“They are attached to disability rails, which impede the pathway from disabled students,” Gladwin said.
Fleischmann said he did not believe it was necessary for Public Safety officers to resort to cutting bikes loose that quickly.
“None of the bikes were impeding the ramp at all,” Fleischmann said, adding that he did not see readable warnings that prohibited bike parking on the rail, aside from a ripped and faded sticker.
“You couldn’t tell at all what it was,” he said.
Yet on the other side of the railing that faces away from the door to the Math Building, several white-stenciled declarations clearly read “NO BIKE PARKING.”
“Those signs are still legible,” Gladwin said, adding that a work order has been filed to restencil the railing.
Last year, the ASUM Office of Transportation appropriated $19,000 for new bike racks on campus, which were installed last fall.
Soaring fuel prices, however, will likely mean increased bike traffic this spring, and less room for bike parking at UM.
Gladwin added that UM is looking to install even more bike racks once funding can be found.
michael.gerrity@umontana.edu