Like many students living in Gainesville, I love biking, especially mountain biking. Over the summer I went on a road trip across the country. I got to do some great mountain biking. My favorite location from the trip was a small town in Colorado called Durango. If you ever get a chance to go mountain biking there, you will get to go on some great trails. What you won't experience is a large homeless population living in tents on the bicycle trails.
Many students may not realize that Gainesville has some great biking trails running through and around the city. However, I regret to inform
that these trails are no longer safe. Going for a nice ride after the first week of classes on some of these trails, I discovered that the residents from tent city have now inhabited the beautiful mountain biking trails. Garbage is everywhere. Trash piles, stolen items, rotting bags of who knows what.
It's all there and it's disgusting. Guess where these homeless people are going to shower and use the bathroom? In the streams and creeks that flow
through Gainesville.
What prompted me most to write this was not just the utter disgust for what has happened to the Gainesville woods. I also wrote this article because, while on my bike ride beside one of the groups of tents, I got chased by two very large dogs. Luckily I was on a bike and I can ride fast. If not, these dogs surely would have attacked me. As I was riding away as fast as I could, I glanced back to see one of the dog's teeth about a foot from my left leg.
Gainesville is going to shit and I want UF to realize this. Other college towns in the United States don't have this problem and Gainesville shouldn't either. Something needs to be done about this homeless population living in Gainesville. I hope the Gainesville Police Department realizes what is really becoming of Gainesville before someone gets sick from human waste in the stream water or gets attacked and killed by dogs.
