NEWS: State bill enacts roll- through laws for bikes, non-motor vehicles

ROAD RULES

State bill enacts roll-through laws for bikes, non-motor vehicles

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY FALYN SEBASTIAN THE COLLEGIAN

By Austria Cohn

@austriacohn

Bicyclists and people on electric scooters over 15 years old are now able to generally treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs.

Gov. Jared Polis signed House Bill 22-1028, known colloquially as the “Safety Stop” bill, April 13, changing the law for bicycles, electric scooters and e-bikes. Bicycle Colorado, an advocacy organization that does work in policy and education around bike safety, was a key player in this bill’s signing.

“The ‘Safety Stop’ is important because it keeps people on bikes safer,” said Jack Todd, director of communications and policy at Bicycle Colorado. “Intersections are the most dangerous places for people on bikes. ... When bicyclists are able to get out of that location faster, it improves their safety.”

According to the Highway Loss Data Institute, in 2019, 35% of bicyclist deaths occurred at intersections.

Dave Dixon, executive director of bike advocacy nonprofit Bike Fort Collins, said this bill is not to give cyclists favorable treatment but instead to clear intersections. Dixon said clearing intersections reduces the potential that bicyclists and vehicles will come into conflict with each other.

“The law stipulates that (riders) can only proceed through the intersection if the coast is clear, meaning there’s no traffic coming the other direction,” Dixon said.

Colorado State University student Lillian Ward bikes around campus to get to classes, dorms and Morgan Library. Ward thinks it’s safe to bike around campus, but the outer parts of campus are where she runs into the most conflict with cars.

“It’s only at stop signs where the cars feel like they have the right of way, and they’ll turn in front of you,” Ward said. “They don’t see us; they only check for other cars at stop signs.”

According to Auto Justice Attorney Michael Gibson, 40% of cars that run into cyclists rearend them, and these types of accidents are often at stop signs.

Other states have adopted similar bills, like Delaware’s Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act, which allows bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs.

The Bike Delaware webpage, showing data collected by the Delaware State Police, states crashes involving bicycles at stop sign-controlled intersections fell by 23% between November 2017 and April 2020 as compared to the preceding 30-month period,

which coincides with when Delaware Gov. John Carney signed the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act into law (October 2017).

The first state to ever pass a bill similar to this was Idaho in 1982. Since then, similar bills have referred to the idea as the “Idaho Stop.”

“Forty years ago, in the first year (Idaho) adopted it, they saw a nearly 15% drop in crashes between people biking and people driving,” Todd said.

This bill only applies to bicyclists that are aged 15 and older or are accompanied by an adult.

“I think it’s a great win for the bicycle community to be able to legally do something that is safer for them,” Todd said. “We went for this bill because we have seen the data, and we believe it’s safer for bicyclists, so we’re enthusiastic supporters.”

Reach Austria Cohn at news@ collegian.com.

COVER STORY

CSU celebrates Mary Ontiveros’ life, ‘profound legacy’

By Serena Bettis

@serenaroseb

For half a century, Mary Ontiveros dedicated herself to Colorado State University.

Ontiveros worked as a CSU employee for 45 years, retiring a little over a year before her death this February. In that time, she took on many roles, advocated for accessibility for students — especially those from marginalized backgrounds — and helped build CSU into the institution it is known as today.

Friends, family and former colleagues came together April 25 in the Lory Student Center Theatre to honor Ontiveros’ legacy.

“Mary will always be with us, and that for me is the most important thing to remember,” President Joyce McConnell said at the memorial service. “She’s the architect of the Principles of Community. That’s a profound legacy that Mary leaves for all of us, but also in this room is her profound legacy: her family, her friends, alumni, colleagues, students, people that she’s touched through the two and more generations that she dedicated her life to CSU.”

As McConnell said, Ontiveros was fundamental to creating the Principles of Community and also contributed to the creation of the Student Diversity Programs and Services, Project GO, the Native American Legacy Award, the TRIO Programs, the Alliance Partnership, scholarships for first-generation students, putting gender inclusive restrooms on campus and more.

Ontiveros worked in the CSU admissions office for over 20 years before becoming the first vice president for diversity in 2010. There, she removed access barriers to CSU, including changing the admissions application to allow for last names with fewer than four characters, said Shannon ArchibequeEngle, CSU associate vice president for inclusive excellence.

“Much of what defines Colorado State University regarding diversity and access can be traced directly back to Mary O.,” Archibeque-Engle said.

At Monday’s memorial service, tables had centerpieces with tulips, Ontiveros’ favorite flowers, and scarves because she never went anywhere without one. Food provided after the service included “dressed up” popcorn, one of Ontiveros’ favorite things, and small bottles of hot sauce to take home because that was another thing she always took with her.

A seven-piece mariachi band also played before and after people spoke about Ontiveros, as that was something else she loved.

Blanche Hughes, CSU vice president for student affairs, said one of the things she appreciated most about Ontiveros was her commitment to her family.

“She always talked about her family, and somehow she was able to bring those things together,” Hughes said. “As much as she worked and loved her CSU family, she also loved her family, and so I want to take a minute to just thank her family for sharing Mary with the rest of us for all these years. That was a sacrifice for you but an honor and a privilege for us.”

Many people, including Hughes and CSU System Chancellor Tony Frank, spoke on Ontiveros’ resilience. Frank said Ontiveros was “good at getting unstuck” when faced with challenges, and that’s what he will continue to carry with him now that she is gone.

“As the first woman and Mexican American in a major leadership role at CSU in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, 2000s, she experienced unbelievable sexism, racism, classism over all of those years, and yet she got up every morning and wanted to come to work, positive and determined to make a difference in the lives of those she touched,” Hughes said.

Ontiveros contributed a lot to CSU, but everyone who worked with her remembered her more for who she was and how she inspired them than any one thing she did. Hughes said she will “embrace the memories of her calmness, her wisdom, her love of family and friends” and her love for CSU.

Ontiveros was humble, said Ria Vigil, CSU assistant vice president for inclusive excellence. She was the hardest worker and made sure people could not say she was undeserving of her position, Vigil said.

“Mary had your back,” Vigil said. “I always knew that Mary had my back. … She would give me credit for my work, she would listen but support me if I was criticized and she would elevate contributions I made.”

“She finally now has the opportunity to finally rest, with the expectation that we will continue her life’s work, that we will continue to get up every morning, work together and find joy in the challenging work that we still have to do,” Hughes said. “Let’s not let her down.”

To learn more about Ontiveros’ impact on CSU and her own perspective on her time here, read The Collegian’s story about her written at the time of her retirement.

Reach Serena Bettis at news@ collegian.com.

Community members gather in the Lory Student Center Theatre to memorialize Mary Ontiveros, Colorado State University’s first vice president of diversity, April 25. PHOTO BY MILO GLADSTEIN THE COLLEGIAN

PHOTO STORY

‘The best decision I ever made’: Joining Larimer County Search and Rescue

In continuation of last week’s gallery, this week’s paper highlights members of Larimer County Search and Rescue.

The people who make up LCSAR joined the Basic Search and Rescue Training course for various reasons, though they all share a commonality of wanting to give back to the community.

To make a Basic Search and Rescue Training student a fully active member of LCSAR, it takes the people of LCSAR roughly 1,500 combined hours of planning and training.

The coordinator of this year’s BASART class is Ed Hildenbrand. Hildenbrand joined the LCSAR team in 2015 after working as an air traffic controller.

“When I retired in 2013, I knew a guy on the (LCSAR) team from being a bicycling friend,” Hildenbrand said. “And so I asked him, ‘Do you take old guys like me?’ and he said, ‘We take anybody.’ So I decided to join, not knowing that I would be going over cliffs.”

Scott Evans has been with the team since 1996 after moving from California.

“I found out Larimer County (Search and Rescue) existed, found out before we got here actually, and made sure they were a (Mountain Rescue Association) team like I had come from in California, so I knew they were going to be a competent team,” Evans said. “I got to go through their BASART class here and effectively start from square one, even though I had 15 years of previous experience. … They embraced me, and (it) was a really good experience to see how a different team was slightly different, and I really love this team.”

Evans is known as “Scott Knot” because he leads the team through the various knots. He does so with what he coined the “Scott Loop,” a consistent way of starting nearly every knot.

SEARCH AND RESCUE

Rebecca Clark, one of the BASARTs, comes from a background in emergency services, starting as an EMT at 18 years old and becoming a firefighter at 19 years old.

“When I was a little girl, my family was very outdoorsy, and we were hiking up in Utah in one of the canyons, and I had to go to the bathroom and got distracted by the pretty flowers and birds and trees, and before I realized it, I had no idea where my family was,” Clark said. “So my grandfather had taught me that if I got lost to stay where I was and wait to be found. So I found a rock to sit on. I sat there singing church songs until my family found me about an hour and a half later. That just translated into a whole life of service.”

Katie Miller, one of the BASARTs, has attended several trainings with a sprained ankle and crutch, participating in any way she can.

“Unfortunately for me, it is a little bit of a sad reason (for joining LCSAR),” Miller said. “My cousin, who was kind of like an older brother to me, went missing a couple of years ago. Not in Larimer County — down in the San Juans. And unfortunately, he passed. But I was involved in that search, and it was just really incredible to see all the teams who came out and helped with that. I hadn’t really had exposure to search and rescue before, but after that, I just wanted to be able to be more involved and be able to do that for other families because I was really appreciative for that.”

Reach Garrett Mogel at photo@ collegian.com

PHOTO

STORY BY GARRETT MOGEL

Abigail Enssle, LCSAR vice president, joined the team in 2020 as a senior at Colorado State University. “It was something I had always wanted to do since I was really little,” Enssle said. “I grew up in Boulder Canyon, and we would see the flight for life helicopters fly overhead, and my dad would always tell me, ‘That’s flight for life.’ And I was like, ‘That is the coolest job ever.’ I saw an ad on Facebook in October of the previous year that they were taking interviews, and I was like, ‘I am sure I won’t get on the team,’ but I sent in an application, came in for the interview, joined the team, and it was, like, the best decision I ever made. When I joined the team, I was going through a pretty rough time just in my personal life, and also, COVID started like a month after we started our BASART training. So basically, the team became kind of my family, and I have lived with different people on the team, I have borrowed their cars, I have gotten jobs through them, and where I am today is because of the team.”