Courtney McEwen spent her summer saving up for a new bike.
The 19-year-old UF nutritional sciences sophomore said she loves her new set of wheels.
She likes to ride it to the grocery store, to the gym, where she works. She can’t wait to ride her bike more in the future.
But starting in the Fall, the one place she can’t ride her bike is through the Norman Tunnel.
Due to several complaints from UF faculty and other members of the UF community, a construction team will renovate the tunnel to make it safer for pedestrians.
The team will install a series of posts and railings to separate the traffic and slow down the bicycles.
"The mix of biker and pedestrian traffic in the tunnel really isn’t as safe as we’d like it to be," said Scott Fox, director of Transportation and Parking Services at UF.
When bicyclists enter the tunnel, many of them struggle to build up enough momentum to pull their weight up the steep incline at the other end, Fox said.
In the past, they tried to create separate lanes for bikers and pedestrians, he said, but they had limited success because people really don’t stay in their lanes.
Because of the graffiti in the tunnel, any lines and signs placed in the tunnel were ineffective because they’d just get covered up.
"Our goal is to create a safer tunnel experience for everybody," he said.
When McEwen rides over to Norman, she said she won’t mind hopping off her bike.
She said she understands that some might be annoyed by the changes, but if the renovations mean that people will be safer when using the tunnel, it’s a good trade-off.
"At the worst, it will add 30 seconds to your travel time if you are a biker," she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 8/5/2014 under the headline "Norman Tunnel renovations for better bike, pedestrian safety"]
