“Typical – just as I move to Maastricht, they introduce a cycling allowance! There goes my pocket money”, jokes colleague Riki Janssen on learning that UM’s new mobility policy includes a mileage allowance for employees who cycle to work, provided they live a certain distance away (reportedly five kilometres). Until recently, she was commuting thirty kilometres per day, three times per week. At an estimated rate of 20 cents per kilometre (the rate has not yet been set), that would have added up nicely. But she’s about to swap her home in a Walloon village for a place in Maastricht itself – far too close to benefit. In fact, none of us on the editorial team will: we’re all based just outside the city centre. Peter Doorakkers, who lives across the border in Belgium, sighs, “I’m 4.9 kilometres away.” His hopes now rest on a planned road diversion that might just push him over the minimum distance.
Bad coffee, draughty offices, parking woes – it’s often the little things that get people most worked up. The news that campus parking will no longer be free from 2027 onwards has sparked grumbles across the university, as we found out when asking staff for their opinions. Critics say UM is “punishing” people who drive to work. But that is not the intention, the project leader recently stressed in an interview in Observant. The goal is to reward cycling and discourage car commuting, all to cut carbon emissions.
After reading the interview before publication, he confessed he thought the tone was “a bit negative”. That was just his interpretation, from his perspective, I countered; after all, he knows exactly where the sore points are and where objections are likely to arise. But the policy is what it is: a carrot for cyclists, a stick for motorists. Our job as journalists is to present the facts as objectively as possible. What we personally think is beside the point. Readers will form their own opinions, shaped by their own circumstances, their own values and, in this case, their own daily commute.
As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A climate-conscious reader may see the new policy as progress. But a staff member with dodgy knees, who can’t cycle and is soon to face parking fees, may feel left out in the cold.
The editor-in-chief gives a look behind the scenes at the editorial office.