Amidst the Super Bulldog Weekend crowd flooding the MSU campus, Jimmy Richardson wasn’t hard to spot. He was the man in the bright yellow and black cycling outfit, tying his bicycle to a post outside the State Fountain Bakery.
Richardson rode his bike into campus that day from his house in Starkville, rather than driving. He is a cycling connoisseur of sorts, and he has a vision for Starkville in which cyclists, pedestrians and the disabled can get around town more easily.
Richardson and Chris Cosper are the head officers of Starkville in Motion, an organization working for a more biker and pedestrian-friendly city and campus.
“This is part of a movement that’s been around for a long while,” Cosper said.
“It’s been an ongoing thing for probably three to four years, and the work we’re doing really started with the research that was done at [MSU’s] College of Architecture,” Richardson said.
“There was funding made available to study walking and biking in Starkville,” Cosper said. “Several different meetings were held in response to the studies, and Starkville in Motion was created following these meetings.”
The organization was created last November to be a mechanism in getting more sidewalks and bike trails implemented in the city. Cosper and Richardson spearhead the operations of Starkville in Motion, and they are working to see more sidewalks and bike paths in Starkville and at MSU.
“We are promoting sidewalks, bike lanes and trails in the city of Starkville,” Cosper said.
“When we say Starkville, we mean Mississippi State, too,” Richardson said. “We’ve spoken to Ray Hayes, we know about the plans for bike trails on campus, and we’re trying to make our expectations mesh with the university’s plans in order to make [the campus] a more walker and cyclist-friendly area.”
Cosper said bike trails and sidewalks leading into campus from Starkville would benefit Mississippi State and the city.
“People can come from Starkville to Mississippi State and experience a lot of the recreational activities that the campus has to offer, and oppositely, people who live on pus can go to Starkville for recreation, business, etc.,” Cosper said.
Cosper said that Starkville isn’t as pedestrian and cyclist-friendly as it needs to be.
“Starkville is a college town, and I think in most people’s minds, when they think of a college town, they think of a community where they can walk,” Cosper said. “In Starkville, there are some opportunities for that, but not to the level that you would expect in a college town.”
The men behind Starkville in Motion aren’t just talking about sidewalks and bike paths; they are formulating plans and even designing bike paths and sidewalks for the community.
“You can’t just say, ‘Hey give us some money so we can make bike trails,'” Richardson said. “You have to have a plan, and we are in the process of designing bike trails and sidewalks for University Drive and Lynn Lane, and we are working on safer routes to schools in the Starkville community as well.”
Cosper said they would like to see more racks set up on campus and in the community.
“It’s quick and relatively inexpensive,” he said.
Richardson and Cosper are optimistic that their work will pay off for the community.
“In the next couple of years, I hope to see some plans underway, if not completed,” Cosper said. “I think we’ll see University Drive completed because there is so much support for it.”
Richardson stressed the essentiality of popular support in the community.
“It is important that we have support, especially from students and faculty on campus and those in the Starkville community who are interested,” he said.
Blake Watson, a sophomore business information systems major, is a supportive student. As a physically disabled student, Watson relies on the sidewalk systems on campus to get around.
“I’m glad that [Starkville in Motion] is trying hard to get more sidewalks and bike paths in the city and on campus,” Watson said.
Watson said the biggest need is sidewalks and bike paths that connect the university to the city. If more students could use sidewalks and bike paths to get to campus, parking wouldn’t be such an issue.
“A lot of people would use [sidewalks and bike paths] if they were available; they would be a definite advantage,” he said.