Like many college towns, Norman has a lot of people who ride bikes. And a lot of these people are students, who either can’t afford to drive an automobile or are trying to be more environmentally friendly.

While OUPD has done a lot to promote bicycle safety on campus, including providing a bike registration service for students and faculty members, we think one of its recent measures relating to on-campus biking isn’t too friendly to students who choose to ride rather than walk or drive.

This measure is the OU Physical Plant and OUPD’s decision to cut locks off bikes parked on campus somewhere other than a bike rack during home football games (see page 1 for details). Once the lock has been cut, the department will confiscate the bicycle and take it to the Physical Plant, where it can be claimed later.

We are certainly not in favor of littering on campus or campus vandalism, but we wonder what negative impacts a bike has when it is parked next to a tree or trash can.

If it seriously impedes someone from walking or damages a tree, we may have a different view. But from what we’ve observed, there aren’t enough instances of this happening to warrant this measure, especially when the people who fall victim to it receive no explanation as to where their bikes went.

They may be left to assume that their bikes were stolen, when in reality, they are just sitting at the Physical Plant.

We understand OUPD is simply employing the same principle used when illegally parked cars are impounded. But a car is much larger than a bike, and therefore has a better chance of getting in the way. A slim bike rarely hurts anyone.

If OU administrators feel illegally parked bikes are a problem during home games, they should purchase and install additional bike racks. This would encourage biking, while diminishing the occurrences of bikes parked in places other than in bike racks. UOSA is working to make this happen, but help from the administration couldn’t hurt.