Yes, no, maybe: walk as a means of transport
I am currently writing the aims and objectives for our new walking society “cranfielduniversitywalks” which ought to be easy. I thought there should definitely be something about promoting walking as an alternative means of transport – i.e. walking to neighbouring villages such as Cranfield, although one of our members walks daily as far as Newport Pagnell! I then had a discussion with our University’s Transport Team, after I suggested to them to include a link to our new website on their intranet web page. What came out of this discussion was that our Transport team does not view walking as a means of transport and therefore it does not deem it appropriate mentioning walking (and us) on their web page. Interesting, I thought. A day or so passed and I received a call from the Transport Team saying they changed their mind and they will be including walking info on their intranet page in the future. But I am still bit baffled – is walking means of transport? Yes, no, maybe?
September 29, 2011 at 20:13
Unfortunately this kind of confused response is quite typical – communication across the university has always been pretty bad and it can be quite difficult to get people to engage with others outside their own little area. Technically the transport teams job is to provide transport for various longer journeys where walking isn’t all that practical. If they told a new student waiting at Luton airport with their luggage to walk it that probably wouldn’t go down so well. The fact that people might end up at their intranet page when trying to find out about walking is something they probably never considered.
Though the cynic in me wonders how much money they think they will lose on the coach from the village to the university if everyone started walking it.
You might try talking to the green team as well. On the one hand promoting carbon free means of transport is one thing they ought to be really interested in. On the other hand I suspect only trips on official university business count when it comes to government carbon reduction targets…