The Request for Proposal for a Solar Farm Public-Private Partnership on South Farms resulted in 12 proposals for the Solar Farm.  The technical evaluation committee worked on reviewing and scoring each proposal, and provided some clarification questions to the UI Purchasing contact person.  The committee will meet again in May to identify a preferred vendor.

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.

Staff met with a representative from the UI Electric Vehicle Club.  We discussed potential implementation strategies for an electric vehicle charging station on campus.

Academic Hourly position for Composting will start June 1.

At the spring iCAP Forum, sustainability staff presented a status update about progress towards meeting our commitments in the Illinois Climate Action Plan.  This included a broad overview of the various initiatives that are currently underway and a summary of the next steps in this process.  After the presentation, participants were asked to work in groups to provide feedback about setting priorities for further iCAP implementation.  A summary of the feedback will be available after the Spring 2012 semester.

The April CCNet meeting featured local active transportation advocates Cynthia Hoyle and Gary Cziko, discussing bicycles, bike safety education opportunities, and the importance of bicycle infrastructure improvements. 

The Illinois student chapter of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) met with staff to discuss an energy and water conservation program they would like to initiate in FY13.  This would require some meter upgrades which could be implemented in conjunction with the Energy Dashboard project.  In the fall, the students would organize conservation competitions between various residence halls on campus, to promote, highlight, and celebrate sustainable behavior.

Bryan Johnson, from University Housing's Sustainability Council, has reported that residence halls PAR and FAR have individual metering setup, but Blaisdell Hall's metering is connected to the mechancial room and dining hall. LAR and Allen have individual metering, but the dining hall feeds into both dining halls. Information about metering in Busey-Evans is still needed.

Keith Shank at IDNR responded to the EcoCAT request, with the following note.  "Well, it’s hard to escape those Franklin Ground Squirrels.  In 2010, Ameren observed two FGS near the intersection of Curtis Road and Rt. 45, and ten years ago we had a road-killed FGS at Windsor Road and Rt. 45.  Ameren opined they could be all up and down the RR corridor, which the western end of your project area happens to lie against.

It may be possible the FGS are in the area around the farm buildings, but they would be unlikely to be out in the experimental plots, at the moment.  However, depending on the type of solar energy facility being proposed, they might be able to colonize the solar farm.  While that would be good for the FGS, it could complicate subsequent operations and maintenance of the facility.  Remember that they love any kind of soil stockpile, so be careful where you stack any dirt and how long you might leave it there."