Is USC afraid of bikes?

My morning rides to school on a bicycle has been a source of joy and pride for me. There is always that sense of exhilaration at being unimpeded on the road even during rush hours, as my rusty Japanese roadster easily gets through traffic jams like—to borrow a metaphor from a poet-friend—an eel slipping out of the hands of its catcher.

I feel proud at how I can still exercise freedom of mobility despite the road gridlock with the simplest vehicle that the theologian and prophet of appropriate technology Ivan Illich calls a “convivial tool.” With the bike, there is no alienation with machines as you seem to get away with the usual hindrances of industrial society.

Or so I thought. Recently, my joyride came to a halt when I was about to park my harmless steed in an inconspicuous shed near a gate of the University of San Carlos in Talamban. I thought it was the best place to leave my bike since it’s near the guardhouse and I thought the security guards could  watch over it. One of them even parked his own mountain bike next to mine so it did not occur to me that my bike (the type lovers ride in old glamour movies) could be an eyesore.

But before I could even chain my bike to a post, a security guard who mistook me for a student came to tell me that it’s not allowed to park a bike there. He told me to leave my bike at the parking area near the main gate.

I pointed to him the bike beside the guardhouse and said that I was just taking their lead. He must have been surprised by the obvious irony, especially after sensing that I was a faculty member, and promised to tell his colleague to move his bike to the parking area.

I also pointed to bikes parked at a rack under the ramp of the building across the street and told him that those bikes, too, should be moved to the official parking area. Conceding, I asked him if I could park my bike along with others at the rack under the ramp. He said yes (once again contradicting himself).

After securing my roadster with a chain,  I went back to the guard to ask him to show me next time a copy of the official regulation to prove that the sign which says “Bicycle/motorcycle parking area” is a rule and not just a suggestion.

When I returned to school two days after, the guards did not seem to care about me when I passed by the gate on my bike. I noticed that the same bike of their colleague leaning on the guardhouse, so I decided to park my own bike close to it.

As I walked  to our college building, I noticed several motorcycles parked just anywhere in the campus. Why, I asked myself, is this same freedom not granted to bicyclists in the campus? Does it indicate a preference, written (by way of policy) or unwritten (the subconscious contempt for the poor and their contraptions), for motor vehicles?

Teachers who ride cars have long enjoyed the privilege of being able to get away with frisking at the gate or coming to school unnoticed in their shorts, sandals, and other “improper” attire. But those who bike or walk to campus have to go through all the inspections and other procedures that sometimes border on harassment perhaps only because they look poor.

And so the Road Revolution, that recent movement that seeks  to make Cebu City  a more hospitable place for walking and cycling, modes of commuting that makes the planet and people healthier, seems to end right in my university.

Never mind if the Road Rev began with lectures by my own colleagues in the college, the Harvard-trained landscape architect Socorro Atega and urban architects Omar Maxwell Espina and Rey Ursal.

Ursal, who prefers to bike rather than take his car to school, has his own stories of frustration with guards over where to park his bike. Rey is active in the bike community. He told me that a lot of his friends have reverted to cars after finding it hard to park their bikes or—worse—having to always deal with people who look down on them because they don’t come in the shining shell of an expensive vehicle.

In a recent environmental summit, the SVD (Society of the Divine Word)-educated architect Felino Palafox Jr. strongly recommended that cities install special lanes for bicyclists and to promote biking as a  transportation policy.

In other words, institutions, shops, workplaces, and schools should make it convenient and pleasurable to go around in a bicycle, which in many countries is considered “pedestrian” or having the same access to people.

Ironically, USC once asked Palafox to draw a master plan for the university.  I wouldn’t imagine him strictly designating a single parking place for bikes to prevent them (while cars and motorbikes roam free) from going around the campus. Unless, of course, it’s just a suggestion.