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Projects Updates for theme: Transportation

  3. Weekly Update: Open hours sign, bikes pick up

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Last week I had an epiphany that we should probably have a sign on the door that lists our hours, even if they are appointment only. That’s in the works, should be ready tomorrow.

    With the decrease in testing for grad/staff we’ve had to turn a few people away for not being up-to-date. They have, by and large, been totally understanding. A few people have emailed and canceled ahead of time, which is welcomed.

     

    Set up a secondary pegboard in the shop to better organize freewheel/cassette tools—it’s a vast improvement over the drawer and/or coffee can we’d been using before. Last week I grabbed the scrap metal bin, some miscellaneous parts, and Aquaham Lincoln. He’ll live atop the fridge.

    This week I’ll coordinate with Parking to pick up a few bikes—only space for 3 or so—for instructional/teaching purposes with the new hires, schedule a staff meeting for my team, finalize placement for wheel hooks around the shop to increase storage.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 12
    Sales: $747
    Memberships: 4 for $120
    Refurb bike: 2 for $430
    Tire/tubes: 10 for $57

     

    Thanks!

     

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  6. Weekly Update: Refurbished bike swap, low numbers, signage

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Another week in the books! It’s definitely still an adjustment to be open only by-appointment. We’re still getting phone calls and emails about user error and whatnot when scheduling and we’re only seeing 4 or so people per day. But hey, it’s a pandemic. People are still going to the old shop—some internet search engines are not up-to-date but we do have signage over there. Ironies of all ironies since people couldn’t seem to find that tucked-away garage before and are now flocking to it, it seems.

     

    Had a refurb-swap of a loose cranked bike. Thankfully the gentleman wasn’t injured in the failure. He took a different same-priced bike. He was very understanding and that was appreciated.

    Still working on upping our staffing levels to a comfortable number.

    We’ve only done a handful of bike registrations, which either speaks to the cost-as-deterrence or that people are picking them up elsewhere. Hopefully the latter!

    Still optimizing the layout and functionality of our new space but everyone who’s visited that was familiar with the old space has been blown away by the across-the-board improvements. I discovered a closet here that I didn’t know existed which now is storing the Bikes at Work trailer and the smaller kid-sized one. Aquaham Lincoln will likely migrate over here this week.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 21
    Sales: $562.70
    Memberships: 3 for $90
    Bikes: 3 for $360
    Tires/tubes: 1 for $1

     

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  9. Final numbers from Light the Night 2020

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    This year, Light the Night event was hosted at three locations: Alma Mater Plaza, Hallene Gateway, and Campus Bike Center (new location). Overall, the volunteers installed bicycle lights to nearly 450 bikes at these locations.

    Leftover lights:

    Red lights: 806

    White lights: 779

    The remaining lights are stored in Room 143 at F&S. They will be distributed among the four funding agencies.

  10. Light the Night 2020 - post event meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    The Light the Night 2020 organizing team met on September 29th, 2020 to discuss the event and lessons learned. Gabe Lewis said that he was in contact with City of Urbana to publish a final report for LTN 2020 in their upcoming newsletter. Sarthak Prasad would do the final count after the meeting so that Gabe can send the report to City of Urbana.

    The team noted that there were several students who needed repairs on their bicycles, so they were given the informtion about Campus Bike Center. Jeff Yockey was also doing minor repairs at the Hallene Gatway location. Next year, we could maybe advertize the event so that those needing minor bike repairs can go to the CBC location. Jake Benjamin said that we could have a repair station at the end of the volunteer line at the CBC location for anyone needing immediate repair. We all thought it was a great idea!

    The team also noted that since the light installation took minimal time, the attendees were more interested in learning more about the bicycle information, Census, and Wellness this year. We should also have the Bike at Illinois merchandize and other handouts at the exit rather than at the entry point.

    Finally, we all thought that the presence of UIPD was very encouraging, the officers helped out a lot with handing out information, and they were happy to help!

    The event was considered a success, considering the pandemic and concerns of having a distribution event. All volunteers were very careful and abided by the Safety Plan in place and helped keep the line of attendees moving (attendees were in and out within 2 minutes).

    Stacey DeLorenzo, Chantelle Hicks, Sinead Soltis, and Sarthak Prasad took several pictures for the event and posted them to social media.

  11. Weekly Update: First week open, Light the Night

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Last week was our first full week of being open since the pandemic-induced shutdown. We are by-appointment only and making do with that. Visits, sales, and the like are—compared to normal—way down for this time of year.

    We also had Light The Night last week and hosted one of the sites here at the Bike Center. It wasn’t as great a turnout as hoped but it was a new location for LTN and it’s a pandemic. We weren’t able to do our normal word-of-mouth publicity during open hours to the degree we’re accustomed. Thankfully we got some signage up at the old garage alerting people to our new location.

     

    This week we’ll work on optimizing the scheduling system, staff meetings, and safety checking a handful of bikes.

    Visitors: 38
    Sales: $951.50
    Memberships: 1 for $30
    Bikes (refurb): 5 for $790
    Tires/tubes: 3 for $27

     

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  12. F&S sharing SmartWay status with UIC

    Associated Project(s): 
    EPA SmartWay Affiliate

    Morgan White and Sinead Soltis met with Katherine Yoshida, the University of Illinois-Chicago's Sustainabiliy program director about our system's status of being an EPA SmartWay Affiliate. Discussion included the history of SmartWay on our campus, along with ideas of how to integrate into UIC's campus. 

    A follow up call is scheduled for the end of October. 

  13. Final Check

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    On September 18th, the organizing team met to finalize the tasks before the event. We discussed the bike rack on bus demonstration, volunteer update, and some remaining tasks in the to-do list in the LTN google drive. We decided to meet once more before the meeting on Wednesday.

    Confirmed 37 Volunteer  submissions, 6 police officers will be present for the duration of the event (2 at each location), and 2 Wellness Ambassadors at each locations to talk about the current situation and the need for precaution (they will also handout safety information packets including masks). Gabe confirmed that 2 representatives from Census 2020 could join each location as well.

    Campus Rec and iSEE will provide some water bottles to be handed out to the volunteers who dont have one. DIA will provide 6 Gatorade containers for water refills for volunteers only. Stacey and Sarthak will fill them up with ice and water and deliver them to the three locations.

    We discussed the table setup, how to organize the lines, and the assignments for the volunteers. All volunteers were sent the Safety Plan and Warning and Waiver Form on Wednesday, September 23, 2020. Sarthak and Stacey will drop off the lights and merchandize at each location by 3 pm.

    All tables and chairs will be delivered by 3 pm. Sarthak and Stacey will arrange the tables at 3 pm at Hallene Gateway and Alma Mater location. Sarthak will print out numbers for each table/volunteer station, list of volunteers for each location, etc.

  16. Digital signs posted

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    Digital Signs were posted to the following locations from 9/18/20 to 9/24/20:

    1. Illini Union and Bookstore
    2. Campus Residence Halls and Dining Halls
    3. F&S
    4. BIF
    5. Campus Rec
    6. Beckman
    7. Architecture Building (FAA)
    8. Chez Wounded Veterans Center
    9. Coble Hall- Graduate College
    10. Law Building
    11. CSL
    12. DCL
    13. ECE
    14. Engineering Hall
    15. Foellinger Auditorium
    16. Huff Hall
    17. Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering building
    18. Loomis Laboratory
    19. Material Science and Engineering (MSEB)
    20. Micro + Nanotechnology laboratory
    21. Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory
    22. Siebel Center
    23. Talbot Laboratory
    24. Vet Med Basic Sciences Building
    25. Vet Med Teaching Hospital
    26. EnterpriseWorks at Research Park
    Attached Files: 

  17. Tables, chairs, and hand sanitizers for all three locations

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    The work order was approved (WO #10813200) to place 7 tables, 15 chairs, 2 Hand sanitizer stations, 2 recycling bins for each of the following three locations:

    1. Alma Mater Plaza (intersection of Green and Wright St)
    2. Hallene Gateway (SW corner of Lincoln Ave and Illinois St)
    3. Campus Bike Center (51 E Gregory Drive, Champaign, IL)

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