8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY HARLY KANSAS
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19,2007
CITY
Bicyclists request new path
Brenna Hawley/KANSAN
Traffic concerns small lanes cause commuting issues
The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Advisory Board proposed a bike path that is in its first step. The proposed paths stretch across Bob Billingham Parkway, which becomes 15th Street at Iowa Street.
editor@kansan.com
BY JON GOERING
Sam Owen rides his bike to and from school almost every day. And almost every day, Owen, Albequequer, N.M., junior, makes the decision whether to face the heavy traffic and narrow lanes of Bob Billings Parkway or add seven minutes to his commute by using an alternate route.
Owen lives in an apartment complex west of campus near Bob Billings Parkway. The parkway, which becomes 15th Street at Iowa Street, is the most direct route to campus for Owen. But for bicyclists, riding this route is not a good option.
Members of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Advisory Board discussed the need for a bike path along this stretch of the road for more than a year. For the first time in recent history, the board included the idea on its agenda.
"Car traffic on that road is very heavy," Owen said. "And the lanes are really tight. Some people ride on the sidewalk or cut through grass to get to campus because riding on the road is pretty dangerous."
Owen said riding on the sidewalk was illegal in some parts of the city and wasn't a good option. One side of the parkway has no sidewalk at all. He said if seven minutes was the difference between being late for class or not, it was a tempting option to take.
Owen said this made it a dangerous situation for pedestrians as well.
our students to pedestrians as well.
Kelly Barth, chairwoman of the advisory board, supports the idea of a bike path along the parkway. She said she thought improving the city's bike path system made sense for other reasons, too.
"We are living in a time where the supply of cheap fossil fuels is reaching the end," Barth said. "The sooner people start incorporating non-motorized forms of travel, the better we'll all be."
"It seems a bit counter-intuitive, seeing as we make our money off of parking permits." Hultine said. "But we aren't planning on building any more parking options. I am supportive of lots of options for students to get to campus."
Donna Hultine, director of parking and transit at the University, saw a third reason to improve bike access to the KU campus.
Hultine and Barth said a number of obstacles stood in the way of turning the idea into a reality.
Barth said making Lawrence friendlier for walking and biking had long been a priority for city officials. She said she wasn't sure how high this type of project would rank on the city's priority list, especially now.
"The city has expressed they are in a financial bind," Barth said. "We have to look at what is most important and do that first."
Bill Penny, a member of the advisory board, said he hoped University officials would be willing to donate part of the land they owned on the south side of the street to make room for the bike path.
Jim Modig, director of design and construction management at the University, said the city suggested a plan for a proposed bike path along the south side of the parkway to the Design and Construction Management Department a couple of years ago. But a few physical obstacles along the path increased the cost of installing the path. The initial budget didn't reflect these extra costs.
"Some of the details weren't thought all the way out," Modig said. "But it is really more of a funding issue than anything else."
Modig said he and his staff suggested the city take the plan back to the drawing board. And he never heard anything about it again.
Penny said he hoped the board was taking the first steps toward regaining support for the plan by adding it to the agenda.
Owen said he hoped to have a safe route to ride his bike to and from school.
"I think it would be great." Owen said. "There are a lot of students who live in these apartments. I think it would be very heavily used."
- Edited by Meghan Murphy
Girls challenge stereotypes
》 GENDER ISSUES
BY RAFIQ MAQBOOL
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — A group of teenage girls is taking up fistcuffs to challenge Afghanistan's gender barriers.
"Move, move, move," coach Saber Sharifi shouted as the 20-odd girls sparred recently. "Steady, watch your left shoulder."
Shabnam, 15, said, who uses only one name. "But I think if you are in doing something, you should avoid listening to what people think about you. Sports is a way out of violence for Afghanistan."
"Many people are trying to stop us from participating in sports by saying it is not good for women."
The boxers belong to a new generation of Afghan youth, challenging stereotypes that persist five years after the fall of the Taliban. They train in a room in Kabul's main sports stadium, a venue for public executions during Taliban rule in the late 1990s. Boxing is helping them gain confidence and self-respect, the girls say. Their goal: to be Afghanistan's first women's boxing team.
The girls — who also include Shabnam's sisters, Fatima, 17 and Sadaf, 14 — practice separately from boys and wear warm-up suits. Some cover their heads with scarves or bandanas.
Their effort is a brave one in this male-dominated country, where females start wearing the powder blue burge, which covers them from head to toe, in public at puberty.
"The neighbors do not know about the girls' training yet, but we fully support them," their mother, Salima Rahimi, said.
The family saw a women's boxing match on TV one evening, she said. "I want to become like Laila Ali," Shabnam shouted, referring
to boxing great Muhammad Ali's daughter. "I want to become the world's female boxing champion."
The girls practice three times a week, and Sharifi wants to hold matches by year-end. He has seen "tremendous improvement" in their skills, he said, but hopes for better equipment such as headgear, mouth protectors and quality gloves.
"If the international community is serious about helping Afghanistan transform itself, then here is the chance for someone to come forward and help these girls realize their dreams," he said. "We need to visit other teams and have other teams visit us, because if they don't get enough exposure and matches, then no amount of training in this gym is going to help.
"We don't even have a boxing ring yet," he said.
》 NATURAL DISASTER
District officials compile the figures, which are far from precise, based on reports from police, public hospitals, military officials, relief workers and aid agencies, Mohammad Golam Mostafa of the Disaster Management Ministry, said.
Storm kills 2,300; relief efforts continue
The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said that it believed the toll could hit 10,000 once rescuers reach islands off the coast of the low-lying river delta nation.
Teams from international aid organizations worked with army troops in a massive rescue effort that drew help from around the world. Rescue workers cleared roofs of fallen trees and twisted roofs to reach remote villages, but tents, rice, water and other relief items were slow to arrive. Hungry survivors, thousands of whom were left homeless, scrambled for food.
BARGUNA, Bangladesh — The death toll from Bangladesh's most devastating storm in a decade climbed to at least 2,300 on Sunday and relief officials warned the figure could jump sharply as rescuers reach more isolated areas.
The death toll rose as officials made contact with coastal regions cut off by the storm, Selina Shahid
Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the society, said the estimate came from the assessments of thousands of volunteers taking part in the rescue operations across the battered region.
"We have seen more bodies floating in the sea," Zakir Hossain.
of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, said.
a fisherman from the country's southwest said, after reaching shore with two decomposing bodies he and other fishermen had found.
Squatting in a muddy field with his wife, 45-year-old farmer Asad Ali said their their 5-year-old daughter, the couple's only child, had been fatally crushed beneath their toppled thatched hat in Barguna, one of the hardest-hit districts.
He said a helicopter had dropped packages of food but he had received little assistance. Mobs swarm below the helicopters every time one is spotted.
"I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat," he said. "What I've got so far are a few cookies. Not enough."
Government officials defended the relief efforts and expressed confidence that authorities are up to the task.
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