Many have you have kindly taken the trouble, and thank you, to point out that if any of us here at KAUST actually were to ride our bicycle as depicted in the video, we would come a cropper. That is why we employed a special Hollywood stunt bicyclist to execute this dangerous maneuver. Our own Charles Kingdon, Director of the Research Park and Industry Collaboration, rode his own bicycle in a foolhardy way down steps on campus and broke his arm. Don’t do this! This is a video, not real life – much like the beautiful desert dune in the video that you would be hard pressed to find in our neighborhood, we’ve told a story that may vary slightly from your own reality. Please walk your bicycle across the footbridges.
6 comments
Were these huge steps on that bridge really necessary? Unfortunately, KAUST campus car traffic only and the few last-minute installations to satisfy cyclists are extremely poor. It would be great if KAUST could resolve these issues, starting with a bicycle path with access to all research buildings on level 0! Such a path would simplify life for all cyclists (not to mention the pedestrians in the spine). Handicapped people and parents with strollers face the same problems: Side walks end in 20-cm-steps, or Zebra crossings lead nowhere…
If the campus had been built with bicycles in mind, these wouldn’t be problems. Access of wheeled vehicles–which includes wheelchairs and strollers in addition to bicycles–to most of the campus is incredibly lacking. Most of the sidewalks don’t have ramps. There is limited access to the academic buildings as Sabrina pointed out. The university needs to take a hard look at the entire campus and figure out how to make it more accessible to bicycles, wheelchairs, strollers, and other wheeled vehicles. No one wants to drive if they don’t have to, and the campus is too big to walk everywhere. This is an accessibility issue that needs to be fixed.
Thank you for your feedback. Our humour shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of concern about the questions raised. Facilities and Community is steadily working to address this issue and improve those areas of the community and campus where access may still be a challenge. Ramps have been cut into some sidewalks and curbs and this continues to be ongoing. You are invited to send those specific problematic locations to reportit@kaust.edu.sa so that they can be inspected by F & C and Health, Safety & Environment for possible adaptation or amelioration. Please bear with us as we slowly make a home together out of what was until very recently a massively ambitious construction site. The frustrations may sometimes mount, but people of good will are working hard to address them.
I had to look up come a cropper. Also, any chance we can get comment preview or Markdown formatting in the comments? My raw HTML-fu is not that great…
Thanks for your feedback. One of the pleasures we take in communications is that of language and so we hope to share with you the richness of the language of the Bard. We are looking into comment preview and markdown formatting. Stay tuned.
We have now integrated a live preview into the comment form. You can test by typing in the text box – no need to actually post the comment. We have also listed HTML tags below the comment box.