Following the CTAC meeting on March 27, 2020, the Committee approved the proposal of adding a one-time $10 bicycle registration fee per bicycle.

Attended by: Sarthak Prasad (organizer, F&S), Morgan White (F&S), Stacey DeLorenzo (F&S), Marty Paulins (Parking), Gary Williamson (Parking), Bryan Johnson (Housing), Barbara Robbins (UIPD), Tara Hurless (UIPD), Jake Benjamin (Campus Bike Center), Alana Harris (called in, Campus Rec), John Lantz (called-in, Office of the Dean of Students), Ben LeRoy (City of Champaign), Lily Wilcock (City of Urbana), Jeff Yockey (Champaign County Bikes), Donna Williams (Called-in, Project 529)

Sarthak Prasad organized this meeting on January 31st from 2-3 pm to discuss Bicycle Registration using Project 529. We started off with the introductions, and Sarthak briefly explained the agenda for this meeting.

We talked about the current bicycle registration system for the University and both the cities, and the need to bring a new registration system to the university and the community. City of Urbana has a paper based bicycle registration system and City of Champaign does not currently have a bicycle registration program. We discussed the potential benfits for having Project 529 as the national bike registry vendor. Some of these benefits include:

• Project 529 is a National Bike Registry with nearly 1.5 million bicycles registered
• Bike theft recovery
• Consolidated system - one system for all
• Bicycle safety and enforcement
• Gather numbers
• Ability to send push notification - information on street/sidewalk/bike path closure, information on bicycle events in the community
• Information on any group rides in the community
• Project 529 will help enter the serial numbers in their system for the impounded bicycles or during bicycle round-up
• Admins can contact the users using the unique Shield number

Following this, Sarthak talked about the costs that will be incurred to bring this system, and went over the Quote (attached) with the group. We (university) have started the Purchase Order process, and is in progress. To start with, the University will pay the entire quoted amount (including the Secondary accounts) to bring the system here. Sarthak has asked the Cities to contribute the Secondary Account funds. This system will also include the Village of Savoy, but since the population is much less compared to the University and the cities, Project 529 will not charge a Secondary Account fee for Savoy. This will mean that there can be administrators from the University, Urbana, Champaign, and Savoy. These admins will have access to the program (not separarte programs for each unit).

The University is also considering adding a $10 registration fee, but we trying to get approvals on that. The funds from this registration fee will go towards the bicycle programs in the university and community. Sarthak, Morgan, and Stacey will discuss with the Cities on how to distribute the funds.

Facilites & Services Transportation Demand Management (F&S TDM) at the University is purchasing the Community Plan from Project 529, and will lead this project. We would appreciate the support from all of departments involved.

Sarthak briefly explained the implementation plan, which is to launch a Pilot program immediately after the Spring Break, look for what works and what needs work, right up a report by the end of June, and launch the program to the public starting in July 2020. Following this, Donna from Project 529 briefly explained how the system works and some of the existing features. We also discussed how to add new features as well.

In the final 15 minutes, we asked Project 529 some questions about their system.

Ben LeRoy and Lily Wilcock will get back to Sarthak Prasad about funding the Secondary Accounts fee.

The Campus Bike Center held Fix-a-flat classes every week on Fridays from March 29, 2019 (from 11 am - 12 pm) till the end of semester (May 3, 2019).

Description for the Fix-a-Flat class:
“Tired of getting flat tires on your bike? Come to this 1 hour informational hands-on class to learn how to solve one of the most common bicycle repair problems! We’ll cover the basics of removing a wheel and tire, replacing the tube, and reinstalling the wheel on the bicycle. All tools and parts will be provided.”

All, Big but also kind of micro news is that there’s been a noticeable uptick in donations here at the Bike Center. While I’d love to attribute that to our awesome Bike Abandonment Prevention program, it’s really just been local community members who’re cleaning out their garages--most prominently two white bearded men, not the graduating seniors that we’re hoping to attract.

But that’s a good segue into what our Bike Abandonment Prevention is trying to do: reduce and abate the number of abandoned bikes left by students leaving campus around this time of year. In turn we hope Parking will have to collect fewer bikes that’ll end up in our hands in the end anyway. We’ve got signage and a bike rack set up outside the Bike Center to allow students to donate their bikes and, to incentivize the donation,  in return they can get a water bottle (but the water bottles are only available during open hours). We’ll track how many students are donating and obviously won’t be turning away community donations. There’s already been a social media push and advertising done by Campus Rec to help promote and get the word out!
We’ve got our Fix-a-Flat class this Friday and of course Bike To Work Day on Wednesday. The weather isn’t looking great but we’ll get the dedicated folks come through, I’m sure. Jeff Yockey dropped off the BTWD shirt last week and we’ve been hanging it by the register to showcase the event. Over the upcoming weekend we’ve got our Bike Rodeo event which will also double as a drop-off spot for the Bike Abandonment Prevention program. May is looking busy but it is Bike Month!

Numbers:

Visitors: 73
Sales: $812.50
Memberships: 6 for $180
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $500

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, Apologies for the delay. I was out of town Monday and Tuesday.

Last week was busy. Hovered around 20 people in per day. Warm weather always helps. We had our third Fix-a-Flat class and again no attendees, unfortunately. The students hosted their Friday Ride and one person showed up (former employee). I tabled at the Health Fair last Tuesday and got to chat with the UIPD officer stationed next to me. He referred me to the METCAD phone # in the event of cyclists witnessing or experiencing unsafe car/truck drivers on campus.

This week was obviously truncated with me being out of town. The student staff operated the shop in my absence. I’ll check in with them this week and see how that went. Tomorrow evening is the Bike Maintenance info session/class in the winter garden from 7 – 8pm. Friday is the first Full Moon Ride, a community bicycling event here in town, so I’ll talk that up. It is easily our most popular cycling-related event in the warmer months here in town.
Numbers:

Visitors: 96
Sales: $717.50
Memberships: 4 for $120
Bike (refurb): 2 for $350
Tire/tube: 11 for $55

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Good Morning Illini to the Bike Center. I shot a segment with one of their people on patching a tube. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the air. It was still good outreach and nice to bring a few new people into the shop.

We’ve yet to have any attendees for our fix-a-flat class, unfortunately. The students running it have done a great job of prepping for it, though. A silver lining of sorts.
This week there is the Health Fair I’ll be tabling at tomorrow all morning, I’ll be coordinating with Parking to get some more bikes from the warehouse, and on Friday is the fix-a-flat class and the Friday Ride.

Next Monday I’ll be in Minnesota for a training, so the weekly digest will be a bit late.
Numbers:

Visitors: 77
Sales: $283.50
Bike (refurb): 1 for $150
Memberships: 2 for $60

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, Last week we were closed for Spring Break. I worked Monday and Tuesday and made some good solitary progress on shop builds. All of the Reid MTN Sport bikes that Corey finagled for us are in saleable condition and all of the For Sale bikes are nicely displayed, ready to be purchased.

Todd picked up scrap over the break, which is appreciated as always.

This week we have two new offerings starting on Friday: Fix-a-Flat class and our bi-monthly Friday Rides. I’ll meet with the students running each event to make sure everything is in place for their respective endeavors.

The prospect for trained student staffers around for the summer to help out isn’t looking great. I’ll get a final count on availability this week and proceed accordingly.

No numbers since we were closed all week.

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, last Tuesday was BIKE TO WORK DAY! It was great! Great weather, great turnout, great conversation, great blindingly bright Vision Zero t shirts. I even sold some tubes and lights here at the Bike Center during the event and helped with some minor tune-ups. Peak times—no surprise—was 8:30 – 9am. After that a few stragglers hung around until  l0.

On Saturday we had the Bike Rodeo at the ARC parking lot. While we didn’t have the huge turnout we were hoping for, the event ran really smoothly and we were able to educate and teach a lot about bike safety and bike-handling skills. Nothing beats showing a kid who’s barely taller than a bike pump how to air up their tires. Needless to say, that was a team effort.

This week will be a major shop clean and purge as we’ve received another 8 or so bikes from Champaign Cycle that are on-the-whole quality bikes that need somewhere to be stored. And last week with the doors open a lot of leaves and debris got blown into the shop, so that’ll all need cleaning up as well.

Numbers:

Visitors: 70
Sales: $828.60
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $160
Memberships: 5 for $150
Tire/tube: 16 for $89

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, last week was fine. The student workers are getting into the swing of things. Those that were away for the summer are remembering how everything works and that in turn makes them a more helpful. Our suspension of “First Visit Free” has been received well; most people are amenable to the membership fee, even if they only have a very small repair. Only a couple instances of people complaining and they leave unhappy but on the whole I consider it a success. We’ve had a lot of people who’ve had to wait significantly for stand time even with the membership-required policy. It’s unfortunate, but also speaks to our success and the demand for the space. I’ll count it as a positive and a negative both.

Visitors for the week: 154

Last Friday we had a good-sized ride from the CBC totaling about 8 or so people. This time of year is especially well-suited for riding, which I hope translates to more interest.

Last Tuesday was the first Fix-a-Flat class that Simon and Lily ran. From the both of them, it sounded like a success. This week 12-14 people have signed up, most appear to be grad students (not a bad thing).

This week I will continue to publicize and talk up LTN as well as print off some basic text fliers for the event to hand out in advance. Funnily enough the younglings with their smartphones have been asking for fliers for the event! I’ll build bikes and organize, per usual, as well.

Sales (overall): $1,533.10
Bikes (refurb): 0 for $0 (we have two for sale!)
Bikes (B-a-B): 2 for $143
Memberships: 24 for $720
Tire/Tubes: 47 for $283

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager