Pretty uneventful week on the whole. Highlight was an 11-year-old coming in with his mom to fix up his beat-up bike. At 11 he had great tool instincts and was excited about getting his hands dirty. Good times!

Our “For Sale” bike numbers are steadily in the low double digits, but next month we’ll focus on building more, in hopes of staying ahead of the crush of returning students.

This evening is the Bike Project member’s meeting, which I will attend.

The numbers:

Visitors:
Sales: $970.75
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $590
Memberships: 7 for $210
Tires/tubes: 3 for $20

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center
 

This morning, Emily sent out emails to 14 different organizations that have a bike ambassador, a bike buddy, or a similar program to learn more about bike ambassador and bike buddy programs. The email includes a description of the two goals relating to creating bike ambassador and bike buddy programs stated in the 2024 Campus Bicycle Plan. The email also included a 40 question questionnaire, which is linked as a pdf.

These organizations include the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the public works department in the county where Pennsylvania State University is located, Rutgers University New-Brunswick, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California Irvine, University of Iowa, University of California Los Angeles, University of Edinburgh, University of Maryland, University of Oregon, the City of Madison, Wisconsin, Indiana University, and a local biking group in Portland, Oregon (BikeLoud PDX). While 25 universities were researched, not all universities have a bike ambassador program, a bike buddy program, or a similar program and so local organizations that have such programs in these areas were also contacted. Responses are requested from the 14 organizations by July 25th.

All,
The heat is upon us! The high temps have kept us less busy than we might have otherwise been. Still had some folks in and had a Build-a-Bike completed—which is always especially rewarding. Our new door has been working swimmingly, as folks have been able to enter/exit without wrestling with the door and their bike at the same time.

The numbers:

Visitors: 15
Sales: $525.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $200
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
Tires/tubes: 14 for $93

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

A sales order from Planet Bike was created for 1000 Button Blinky bike lights to be delivered mid-August. Sarthak will reach out for an offical quote on the lights in early July, after the new fiscal year begins. The lights will cost $6.75/set plus shipping. 

I am excited to share the news that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has now been recertified at the Gold ranking in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). This is the sixth time we have received a Gold STARS rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This achievement represents our ongoing commitment to making sustainable change on campus. The updated 2025 report builds on previous reporting and helps hold us accountable for continuous improvement toward our sustainability goals.

The reporting process required a huge amount of data collection from across different campus units, covering our academic programs, orientation and training programs, energy and emissions, landscape management, transportation systems, administrative policies, and much, much more. I would like to give special thanks to Codie Sterner at SSIB for helping to lead the data collection process, and to our student interns Jenna Schaefer and Lucy Zhou for their invaluable contributions.

If you are receiving this email, it is because you helped provide key data and insights during this process. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and contributions to our campus sustainability efforts – completing this report and achieving this result would not have been possible without you!

Best,

Miriam

Miriam Keep
Sustainability Programs Coordinator

Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)

Following are the notes from our meeting with Housing about their potential Fleet Management Plan. The meeting took place on 6/13/2025 at 9 a.m.

Attended by - Sarthak Prasad, Shawn Patterson, Matt Brown, Aaron Lewis, Jessica Hauserman

• We did introduction
• Jessica is the Office Manager
• We are looking for a single point of contact
• Not reinvent the wheel - not dictate
• What are we trying to do?
• 12 year replacement plan
• What is the useful life of the vehicle
• Fuel consumptions, idle time,
• Conversations about what would be the correct path
• Right-sizing the application
• We need to purchase a vehicle - what type of vehicle can be purchased
• Matt Brown -
  • They make some purchases of heavier duty trucks based on what the tasks are, the weight of those things
  • Some small transit vehicles
    • Ford transit
  • They are looking for a huge number of things
  • Availability, right sizing, - have some issues with that
  • They are retiring 20 year old vehicles or more
  • They are finally out of pre-2000s vehicles this FY
  • They are now updating
• How we might interact with these goals= planned rotation vs force rotations
  • Deterioration of these vehicles
  • Shawn -
    • The prices have skyrocketed
    • Digging deep - if we have a process in place.
    • If this is the goal, we can do what we can
    • What is the most feasible thing. The university is not going give us so much money to buy whatever we want
    • Housing is the first department we are reaching out
    • Same or similar fleet as F&S
    • We can share our expertise
    • Build a group and plan as to what can be done to improve iCAP goals
• Looking to identify a contact person
  • Start off with Matt Brown and then direct conversations to other departments
  • Various fleets (4)
    • Facilities and Maintenance
    • Building services
    • Student Affairs Technology for Housing
    • Dining - Dell
  • Jessica has helped with costs and ownership of vehicles
    • To maintain or to fuel
    • There is data
  • If the iCAP wants to put a number before we rotate
    • Put a high number, like 15 years.
    • Some vehicles are used less
    • Vehicle by vehicle basis
• Aaron -
  • Has it ever been discussion - drive thru car was on campus to remove debris and gunk - to improve the life?
    • Shawn -
      • Frame - Rust or something
      • Parts are no longer available for that vehicles
      • Undercarriage -
        • $100k to get the equipment
    • Deterioration of the body
  • Rust and under carriage - vehicles deteriorate
• Next Step
  • List and come up with an operation plan
  • For one of the fleet operation or all 4 fleet? Evolving plan
  • Create a Teams Channel
  • Give them a skeleton plan to give to Housing
    • They will fill in what they can do - Based on the F&S Green Fleet Plan
    • The objectives we came up with were through NAFA and based on F&S fleets
  • Maybe a follow up in the end of July 2025
• Matt asked about Idle time sensor
  • GPS sensors that we operate with
  • Not every vehicle is the same
  • External GPS system
• Idle Times are related to Fuel Consumption
• Matt and his team will get a shot on the plan and get back to us
• Housing fleet is at a certain level - swap one for one
  • Very occasional and sporadic that they add a vehicle
  • They can commit to not adding to the fleet

This past week, Sarthak and interns Emily and Max have been working on tagging bicycles on campus for the abandoned bicycles project. Today, the tagging portion of the abandoned bicycles project was completed. Across all blocks of campus, 665 bicycles were tagged. After June 30th, bicycles that do not have their orange tags removed will be collected.