Sidewalk riding earns tickets
Police step up enforcement in city
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can’t be waived.
In 55 minutes Wednesday,
Lincoln police Officer Conan
Schafer wrote four tickets to unsus
pecting bikers cruising along the
sidewalks near 14th and O streets.
And that was just the first hour.
“We’ll start getting busier now,”
he said as a lunch hour crowd began
to hit the sidewalks.
Between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Tuesday, 18 citations were handed
out in the three hours - all to protect
pedestrians and the bicyclists,
Officer Tom Duden said.
“We started to get a lot of com
plaints from downtown business
es,” Duden said. “So this year we
decided to write official citations to
begin the education process right
away.
“We’ve had a lot of people come
up to us and say they’re thankful
we’re handing out tickets.”
The tickets are met with the
usual responses, Duden said. Some
people understand the situation and
accept the ticket and go on their
way. Others are hostile and don’t
understand why it is such a big deal.
Mick Rodysill, a sophomore art
education major at UNL, was
stopped at the corner of 14th and O
streets just before noon Wednesday.
He was lucky, Schafer said. He
received a verbal warning because
he had only been riding a few feet
on the sidewalk before being
stopped.
“I didn’t know it was illegal,”
Rodysill said. “I thought there was
only one or two blocks in the whole
city that you couldn’t ride on.”
The ordinance puts bicyclists in
a no-win situation, he added.
“It’s a Catch-22,” he said. “If
you’re riding on the street you fight
with the drivers. If you ride on the
sidewalks you fight with the pedes
trians.”
And while it may seem like it
for many, riding on downtown side
walks did not become a crime
overnight. In fact, the first city
ordinance designed to stop it was
passed in April 1954.
Since then, the off-limits area
has expanded with the city and now
extends from Seventh to 16th
streets, and from K Street to R
Street. The Havelock, Bethany,
College View and University Place
areas of Lincoln are also restricted.
“Most of the people we stop
don’t know about the ordinance,”
Duden said. “We’ve tried to get the
city to put more signs up, but I
don’t know if it’s a lack of funding
or a lack of interest, but we just
don’t get much help.”
There are a few signs attached
to bike racks in the restricted areas,
Duden said, but most have been
vandalized or taken down.
Lincoln Mayor Mike Johanns
said the issue of more signs had not
been presented to him.
“I don’t think the topic has
come to my desk,” he said. “If it did,
I would treat this like I would if a
neighborhood came to me for a new
sign. I see no reason why we can’t
get out and do it.”
Cost, Johanns said, would not be
a factor.
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“In the grand scheme of things
considering we have an $85 millior
budget, the cost can’t be ver)
much,” he said.
Failing to get off of your bike
take off your skates or carry you:
skateboard on the restricted side
walks could mean much more thar
a simple $26 ticket, Duden said.
Skaters and bikers riding on tht
sidewalk give up their right of way
according to another city ordi
nance. Duden has, in the past, beer
Aaron Steckelberg/DN
, forced to give tickets to cyclists
i who have just been hit by a car com
' ing out of an alley.
New signs would be a huge help
in alleviating the problem, Duden
■ said. And they hope, Duden said,
handing out more tickets will too.
[ “There is a lot of frustration
on our part that there is no com
pliance with the ordinance,” he
said. “We’re hoping that the word
will get out that this is a serious
problem.”
Dump dispute goes on
DUMP from page 1
2000.
The project is waiting or
Nebraska’s Department oJ
Environmental Quality to decide or
permit applications that were submit
ted in 1991 and resubmitted in 1995
A decision is expected in October.
Nebraska’s representative, F
Gregory Hayden, said he does not set
the compact at a crossroads.
“I think we have a constant evolu
tion going on here,” he said. “I’m no
sure I know of its direction yet.”
J. ivvviuia^ IV X 1UJ uvn o O l UU1V J
the compact is heading for disaster
Hayden’s research has found that esti
mated costs per cubic foot of space
would be more than $18,000. Wher
other compacts found their costs pei
cubic foot would be between $400 anc
$ 1,000, they quit. He said waste pro
ducers wouldn’t pay for space if costs
exceeded $400.
iwo states, Nebraska and Arkansas,
have legislators studying whether or noi
the states should get out of the compact
Nebraska State Sen. M.L. “Cap’
Dierks of Ewing proposed legislation
in the last session that would have
pulled Nebraska out of the compact
The measure stalled, but Dierks said
he would try again this session.
In Arkansas, a legislative commit
tee voted Aug. 18 to study whethei
that state should pull out of the com
pact. The committee is expected to
consider the measure this fall.
Commissioners and Hayden have
clashed in the past over his studies -
which also have said there aren’t
• enough wastes produced to need a
dump and that the compact already has
$48 million in interest to pay. One com
missioner, H.A. Caves of Oklahoma,
called Hayden’s studies “opinions.”
Hayden dismisses his critics by
saying his conclusions have never
been proven wrong.
“I’m an economist,” he said
recently. “That’s what I have to offer.”
Commissioners say they still
believe the project will work.
uuson, who said she is pessimistic
about getting approval for the permits
they need to build, said the compact
wins if the site is built.
“That’s not going to wipe away the
10 years it’s taken to get to this point,”
she said. “If I thought there was any
real merit to what the other side is
throwing at us, all of us would have
volunteered to go home.
“There’s better ways to spend your
time.”
Nelson said recently that the com
pact should cut its losses and stop try
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the compact started, assumptions
were made based on data that have
since changed. He said power plants
and hospitals aren’t producing wastes
like they used to and the commission
has failed to change its assumptions.
“It’s never too late,” he said earlier
this month. “I think they are tardy, but
it’s better than truant.”
UBR/XSaY
I
