On October 23, as part of the 2012 Sustainability Week, Champaign County Bikes and the University of Illinois will offer a FREE Cycling Savvy Course. 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

6:30-9:30pm

ARC Auditorium

See attached flyer for additional details.

Transportation staff submitted work order requests to have cost estimates for time and materials for the first five locations to be upgraded from donut hole bike parking to U-rack bike parking.  The remaining nine locations need to have CAD drawings produced and apprroved before costs can be estimated.  

This project will include resurfacing of Fourth Street from Armory Avenue to Peabody Drive and reconstruction from Peabody Drive to Kirby Avenue. It will incorporate on-street bike lanes, curb bump outs for narrowed crossing distances at selected intersections, and new traffic signals at the intersection of Fourth Street and Peabody Drive.

This project will include total removal and reconstruction of Gregory Drive, between Oak Street and First Street, including existing parking along street. This project will also include parking meters and some new sidewalks.  This segment of roadway is intended to be marked as a bicycle route, as part of the Campus Bike Network.

The SSC bike parking award is for $225,000 to install approximately 1,000 new bike parking spaces on existing concrete throughout campus. 

The SSC and the Illini Union agreed to support improvements at the southwest corner of the Illini Union, where there are existing “donut-hole” bike racks.  These will be removed over the summer and replaced with stainless steel U-loops.  Additionally, the F&S Grounds division has agreed to plant an additional tree in that area, which will increase shading for the bike parking.

Through Champaign County Bikes, the University has acquired 22 Varsity Bicycle Racks (which will hold a total of 44 bicycles) from Park-a-Bike in order to run a year-long pilot test of the racks. 10 of these racks will be installed for the year near the Union and the remaining 12 will be distributed in various high-visibility locations on and near campus, to be determined.

The graduate student working on sketches for the Campus Bicycle Network improvements has completed a majority of the campus owned pathways.  In some cases, this has included site visits to specific areas, with the Transportation Coordinator and the Landscape Architect for campus.

The SSC-supported Bike Sharing Feasibility Study student intern held a review meeting with the Bike Sharing Steering Committee.  The report is substantially complete and will be available this summer.  As part of the Feasibility Study, F&S released a bike sharing survey to the campus and surrounding community in late March, and accepted responses throughout April. The Survey received 1,168 responses from students, staff, faculty, retirees, visitors and members of the community. F&S is working with the UI Bikes section of Engineering 315, Learning in the Community (LINC) course, to analyze the data from the survey responses. Students from the LINC course also conducted a focus group with undergraduate students in conjunction with the survey in order to dive deeper into the topic of bike sharing with focus group participants.

In preparation for the third annual C-U Bike to Work Day (BTWD), staff organized fundraising, publicity, volunteers, bike stations’ supplies, registration, and riders’ incentives. The University led the efforts to organize BTWD this year, in partnership with local governments and other agencies. BTWD is an opportunity to encourage and support new bicycle commuters across C-U, including students, staff and faculty of the University, in an effort to create a mode shift toward more bike commuting and less automobile commuting.

SSC granted a funding request from the Campus Bike Project (CBP) which will allow the current part-time hours of the CBP shop manager, a University employee reporting directly to F&S, to be expanded to full-time. The grant also includes a small stipend for part-time student employees to help staff the CBP.  Sustainability Staff have been working with CBP representatives to develop the position description and conduct a job search, which attracted over 30 applications. The search committee, which included sustainability staff from F&S, as well as Bike Project volunteers and members, is currently in the process of narrowing the pool down to select a qualified candidate.

During Earth Week, Campus Recreation hosted a free Cycling Savvy course in the ARC Auditorium.  This event was the classroom session about safe bicycle riding behaviors.

Student intern met with employees at Christopher Hall to make recommendations for new bike parking.

Submitted additional information about bike parking to the SSC, and were granted an award for $250,000 to revamp existing bike parking areas at various key locations throughout campus.

Campus Transportation Committee met and reviewed all bike related iCAP projects. 

Bike sharing survey went live from the LINC course, as described above.

Staff met with employees at the Arboretum to make recommendations for new bike parking near the parking lot between the Idea Garden and the Japan House.

Staff met with Housing representatives to discuss a potential pilot trial of distributed bike parking enforcement.  This would allow F&S to train and authorize certain key facility managers in proper procedures for impounding bikes parking improperly.  Housing will draft a proposal in the next few months, then F&S will discuss the merits with appropriate campus representatives (such as Legal Counsel, the Parking Department, and Campus Planning) and determine how to proceed.

Sample Varsity Bike racks were provided for a one-year free trial to Champaign County Bikes.  The Architecture Review Committee approved testing them at the east side of the Illini Union.  The Union’s approval is pending an approval from SSC for the bike parking improvements at the southwest corner, with FY10 SSC funding.