Madison is one of America’s greatest biking cities. As such, bikers should have adequate access to safe navigation throughout the city. In this spirit of safe navigation, the Madison Police Department has recently begun a bicycle ambassador program.

The Madison Police Department’s programs aim to ease relations between motorists, pedestrians and bikers. The main component of this program is essentially an ad campaign being run by two newly hired bike ambassadors, Jennifer Laack and Zachary Barnes. Their main goal at this point seems to be to educate as many people as possible on proper transportation etiquette.

The bike ambassadors are hoping to promote their programs, ideas and advice by being invited to speak at public events throughout the Madison area. We need to listen to these two bike enthusiasts if we ever hope to improve on the transportation safety and efficiency within the city.

I believe that the University of Wisconsin also agrees with the sentiment of making the streets safer for bikers, and, for that matter, pedestrians in general. As many of you may have noticed, because of new rules limiting moped parking there are less mopeds running through the streets this year in between classes.

This is because moped users had overindulged in ridiculous and uncontrolled driving habits that endangered everyone. To which I have to say: just because what you’re riding looks like a bike but runs like a car does not mean that you get to follow the rules of both modes of transportation.

Education on the subject is a necessary part of improving bike safety. Motorists need to learn how to share the streets with bikers and treat them as equals on the road – not as pests that need to be removed. But beyond simply educating drivers on how to deal with cyclists, we should also be encouraging motorists to bike or walk to their destinations if they are within an acceptable distance.

There is a multitude of reasons why biking and walking are way better than driving. First, biking and walking are healthier. Biking and walking are physical activities that can help us maintain a healthy lifestyle. By choosing to bike 10 minutes or walk 20 instead of taking the easy way out and driving – which sometimes may take the same amount of time – we can help ourselves out by keeping off that extra five pounds, lowering our cholesterol and postponing that heart attack the doctor keeps warning us about.

A large reason why biking is superior to driving is that it does not harm the environment, since it uses no fuel. Plus, who except for the hermits among us doesn’t feel satisfied being out in nature and enjoying the sights and sounds that it offers.

As a bike is my main mode of transportation on campus, I could not be more supportive of programs that aim to make Madison a more biker-efficient and biker-safe city. Here on campus, many of us have had the heart stopping experience of being struck down by a car, bus or moped – or being blocked by the occasional long boarder while trying to navigate through campus during the mid-day madness.

I hope in due time more people will begin to choose biking as an efficient way to navigate the city. Biking is an ingrained part of living in Madison and while the city has done an excellent job accommodating it, there is still much work that needs to be done.

Jared Mehre ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and sociology with a criminal justice certificate.