8A: Solving the problem

8A: Solving the problem

• It goes without saying that UF parking is heinous, and most students opt out whenever possible by taking advantage of options such as walking, bussing, biking, and even skating. While walking, bussing, and biking have been made especially accessible, with appropriate laws, apps, and racks, longboarding has been especially difficult and lacks these luxuries. As discussed in my previous post, 7A, I discussed the issues surrounding on-campus long boarding, such as lack of board storage and forbidden usage of the bike lane to skate.
• After interviewing 5 campus long boarders, all agreed that they enjoy skating on campus, but they are inconvieneced by skating on sidewalks and bike storage. However, if they had to select which issue they’d like to be solved, all agreed that they would rather get to skate on in the bike lanes without police yelling at them.
• Personally, I don’t have an issue with skating in the bike lane, and I think most would agree with me. As a biker myself, I know that it would be just as easy to pass a skater if i needed, and we could both share the lane. From a safety standpoint, I believe that skaters are equally threatened by car accidents, and skaters can also opt to wear a helmet for protection.
• However, in order to fix this issue, this information needs to be better communicated to UF police. UF already has an online platform for sharing messages from police to students; how about developing a service that allows student to communicate back to police? I’m sure there are other issues on campus that students would like to communicate back to the police, skating in the bike lanes just being one. 
• I think one solution to this issue would be to develop a website that students can fill out a form that discusses their issue, which, after approval, will be sent to UF police and published publicly. Other students could then comment on the issue, and once it has been reviewed by campus police, the police could make a formal statement on the issue for complete transparency and optimal communication.
• Ideal customer: Starting with UF, I think this idea could potentially be funded by the campus police or even UF student government. However, if successful, I think a similar service could be implemented on other campuses.