12A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY,APRIL 22,2003
Project to extend current bike trail
John Nowak/Kansan
The railroad tracks running perpendicular to 19th Street have been commissioned for clearance. The city of Lawrence wants to turn the area into bike trails.
By JJ Hensley
jhensley@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Lawrence biking enthusiasts could have more trail options in the future if the city's negotiations with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway go as planned. The trail would be part of a "rails-to-trails" program the city started more than a decade ago.
"We're still in the negotiation stage with the railroad company right now." said city attorney David Corliss.
"We've been negotiating with them for about a year. It's not done yet. But this is a 'when', not an 'if'," he said.
Lawrence converted an unused railroad track into a bike trail in 1989. That trail runs south from 23rd to 29th streets for about one mile. The portion of track under consideration would extend that trail almost two miles north, from 29th to 12th streets, on a path that runs parallel to Haskell Avenue.
The city's negotiations come as welcome news to local cyclists like Clark Coan, a spokesman for Sunflower Recreational Trails, Inc. The organization was one of the driving forces behind the city's initial agreement with the rail company 14 years ago, Coan said.
If this trail is completed it could one day link the Landon Trail in Topeka and the Katy Trail in Missouri as the southern route of the American Discovery Trail, Coan said.
The American Discovery Trail is a proposed 6,800-mile bike trail that would stretch across
the country by connecting existing bike trails.
The Landon Trail runs out of Topeka on the old Missouri-Pacific line, and stretches from Shawnee County into Osage County. The Katy Trail is a 225 mile path built on the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas line and stretches from St. Charles, Mo., to Clinton, Mo. The goal is to link those two trails with existing bike and rail trails that run in and around Lawrence, Coan said.
trails project, the city was able to contract out the work to clear the tracks and had companies pay the city for materials, said parks and recreation director Fred DeVictor. That kept the costs on that project down to between $10,000 and $15,000.
For Lawrence's first rails-tossed Brown, prompting the current coach of the Philadelphia 76ers to give Self help in the future. Self took him up on the offer immediately. He said he quickly cajolied Brown into giving him a job on his staff.
This project might not be as simple because the track runs through neighborhoods and has to cross intersections, DeVictor said.
- Edited by Erin Chapman
New Coach
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
"I wrote Coach Brown a letter once a month to remind him that he'd hired me." Self said. "And he never, ever responded."
Brown didn't forget, and Self was his graduate assistant during the 1985-86 season.
Self said he loved working for Brown, but when he was presented with an opportunity to assist Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State the following season, he headed to Stillwater, Okla. Self assured those at the press conference that it was the last time he would leave Kansas for his alma mater.
"My future is not in Stillwater," Self said. "My future is in Lawrence."
It was a welcome statement to a Kansas community that was stung when Roy Williams accepted a job at his alma mater, North Carolina, just seven days earlier. Like Williams, Self left behind loyal players, a supportive community and a successful program for a job that he said was better for his family. The parallels were too great for sophomore forward Wayne Simien to ignore.
"I couldn't help but think about
"It's tough to think about them in the same situation we were in last week. But it's a tough situation and you've just got to realize it's more of a business up here now"
what it was like watching coach Williams' press conference when coach Self was up there talking and think about the Illinois players" sophomore forward Wayne Simien said. "It's tough to think about them in the same situation we were in last week. But it's a tough situation and you've just got to realize it's more of a business up here now."
Simien and sophomore guard Keith Langford blasted Williams after he told them he was leaving them to coach another program. Both have said their statements came at an emotional time, and they were now focused on their current team.
Wayne Simien sophomore forward
"It worked out for the better," said Langford, who was recruited by Self out of high school. "Some of the kids get torn between coaches and schools and things like that, but I got to play for two coaches that I could build a relationship to."
Edited by Jason Elliott
Safeguard
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
New York University School of Law.
ment an "attack on academic freedom, and quite likely, a violation of the First Amendment." It also said the amendment imperiled a teacher's right to teach and a student's right to learn.
The amendment raised concerns across the country last week. The National Coalition Against Censorship, the American Civil Liberties Union and other national organizations sent letters to Sebelius Friday to protest legislative interference in academic affairs.
"We have been involved with different issues with the suppression of information dealing with sexuality," said Svetlana Mintcheva, arts advocacy coordinator at the National Coalition of Censorship. "Teaching a class using explicit materials and seeing explicit materials on the Internet are entirely different things. We want more speech instead of suppressing speech."
The coalition's letter urged
the letter called the amend-
Sebelius to line-item veto the amendment to the state budget that threatened to eliminate funding for the University's School of Social Welfare. The amendment, introduced by Republican Sen. Susan Wagle, of Wichita, targets a human sexuality class taught at the University by Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare. The letter was signed by 11 national organizations, two professors and the
Mintcheva said the coalition had also been involved with a campaign to examine pornography from a feminist point of view.
We were actually very distraught and I hope the governor does the right thing
"This is not a new concern of ours," Mintcheva said. "Some of the worst censorship has been done at the expense of women's health. Censoring is not the answer."
"Having the Legislature interfere in university affairs is really disturbing, because they're not experts," Mintcheva said. "Once
you start doing that, where does it end?"
After yesterday's veto, the governor said the Board of Regents had well-established policies to allow for students, parents and taxpayers who question the educational value of material used in institutions of higher learning under the authority of the Regents.
- Edited by Lindsay Hanson