We have so many paths we take to class every day. You may find your short cuts and alternate routes with coffee stops along the way, and you may try to avoid a crowd as much as possible. However, with a campus of almost 20,000 undergraduate students, we’re all bound to hit some congestion at least once a day.
While we all may travel the same roads, we all travel them differently. The same routes see slow walkers, fast walkers, skate boarders, rollerbladers, serious runners, casual joggers, and bikers. They see confusion and determination. They see early risers, night owls, and multitaskers. They see it all.
All this sharing of the same space should bring people closer together, but this theory fails to correlate with the reality of the attitudes of University of Delaware students. From the perspective of both a pedestrian and a biker, I can say with a level of certainty that there is an element of resentment on campus paths towards the people who choose to travel differently than us.
As a walker, we are all afraid of getting hit by those on wheels—this has happened tragically in the past, and no one would want to be the victim. When grounded by our own two feet, many of us feel more in control for being closer to the Earth than if we were perched on a bicycle seat. However, there’s another group of people that feels equally or more safe behind the security of handle bars, feet in constant motion, travelling at a fast pace. People are all different and that’s okay. What we need to remember to stay safe is how people are the same.
Just because they may be seated and moving at an faster pace when compared with walkers, bikers are no less human than pedestrians, and they hold similar fears. As a walker, one would rather not get hit by a bike; as a biker, one would rather not get hit by a walker. Just like the roads we share, the fear felt in crowded college campuses is a two-way street.
A vital aspect of living amongst one another is not pointing fingers. Just as we recognize in class that teachers can make mistakes just as easily as students, we need to recognize on our walkways that bikers and walkers alike may be at fault. Who hasn’t zoned out on the way to class? Who doesn’t pull out their phone from time to time, seizing an opportunity to catch up on social media? Who hasn’t been stressed over a class, assignment, game, race, relationship, or interview and had their mind elsewhere, instead of right in front of them?
We all need to remember that on a daily basis, as we might be moving to the same building, we might be moving at different paces or at different stages in our life. The person who doesn’t get out of the way while you’re rushing to class on your bike because they’re on their phone may be having an emotional breakdown and need to text their mom for support before they reach an exam. The biker you glare at as they move past you may only have fifteen minutes to get from main campus to a part of the farm on South Campus, and they’re calculating in their head the minutes remaining until they’re late.
We all need to stop and put ourselves in each other’s shoes—we often are too quick to judge one another. Just because we share the same paths does not mean that we share the same story. Our best days could be someone else’s worst. Make an effort to open up your mind to what may be going on in someone else’s life. If you have the time, even try to ask someone for their story—break out of your comfort zone to help someone else find theirs. You might be able to make someone’s day simply by listening to and attempting to understand them. Then next time you cross paths on the way to and from class—because this, we find, is unavoidable—you will no longer be strangers on familiar ground.
When you find someone else’s story, when you really throw yourself into their shoes, you will always, always find that they have reasons for the modes of transportation they choose. Just because we travel differently and have different schedules does not mean we have to keep our stories separate. Finding understanding in one another will ease the mutual fear we feel and bring us ever closer together. By striving for pathways where bikers and walkers can live freely amongst one another without worry, we take the first steps in understanding the people around us. And from there, we can go far.
