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Final Bike Sharing Feasibility Study Submitted to SSC

Posted by Amelia Neptune on November 30, 2012

The final report for the Bike Sharing Feasibility Study was submitted to SSC. The study recommends the following three tiered approach to bicycle sharing on the Urbana-Champaign campus: 

  1. Bikes available for employees – The small existing program at Kinesiology and Community Health should be replicated at departments throughout campus. The program needs to be approved by Legal Counsel, Risk Management, Purchasing, and interested Colleges.  Then it should be promoted to departments, to encourage them to invest in bicycles for their employees and provide them with a simple support system for maintenance and tracking.
     
  2. Bikes available for short-term rentals – As an interim solution until the campus can handle a large-scale bike sharing program, the small existing program at Campus Recreation should be expanded with support from the Student Sustainability Committee.  They should increase the number of bicycles available, make the program self-sufficient financially, and market the program to visitors, conference attendees, faculty, staff, and students. A similar program could be investigated for the Illini Union. 
     
  3. Bike solutions for students and the public – Before this campus is ready to pursue a public bike sharing system, we must first address the issues regarding degraded infrastructure and the need for more bike safety education. Once these issues have been resolved, the campus should renew consideration of several options for bike sharing, such as bicycle libraries, kiosk systems, and GPS-enabled community bikes.