Alma Mater attendees: Bike to Work Day is TOMORROW MORNING!

C-U Bike to Work Day is tomorrow – Wednesday, September 10!  This is a reminder that you pre-registered to stop at the Alma Mater welcome station (southeast corner of Green & Wright Streets), which will be open from 7-10 AM.  Sarthak Prasad is your station manager.

Tell a friend that they can still register for Bike to Work Day today at cuBikeMonth.org or tomorrow on-site – 16 welcome stations will be open across Champaign County!

The weather looks great – dry, and temperatures between 60-75F.  Tag any photos with us on Facebook at “C-U Bike Month.”  Enjoy the ride!

The Tree Campus Advisory Committee met to review the overall program and committee membership. 

• The new Campus Landscape Architect, Bridgette Moen, joined the committee. 
• Team members discussed potential additions to the committee, including students, faculty, and staff.
• Justin Vozzo shared a status update on the tree grant.
  • Picking up several trees - 90 planted total this year
  • Ryan is heading up the F&S side, Stirling is helping to manage the contracts
  • Justin is hosting some tree plantings across the state, Urbana and in Macomb
  • Two events each spring and fall for next tw o years
• The South Arboretum Woods rehab has several plants being added, and there are student employees funded by the SSC.
• The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) is doing another plant installation this fall, and works with volunteers. They also installed interpretive signage.
• The Urban Wood Reuse program is going well.  The new mill is here, and they are working to hire more students.
• The Committee began reviewing the goals in the 2024 Tree Care Plan.
  • The Tree Keeper Inventory is complete for F&S, and it is still in progress for the Arboretum. 
    • There is also the ARC GIS inventory - which pulls from Tree Keeper
    • Ongoing to keep it up to date
    • Tree surgeons are responsible for logging them into the system
    • Assistants are responsible for logging the stump removals - the sub-foreperson goes in to remove it and change it to open or vacant site
    • When it is removed it is no longer counted in the inventory
    • When a new tree is planted - working with the vacant sites and updating those, planning and potential planting spots and adding the new tree in there
    • We need to identify opportunities to update the existing inventory
      
      • Longer-term - should do an update - including the diameters of the trees - should update that, changes over time
      • Might need to be a tree expert - how to appropriately update it regularly - tree health - arborist or someone who knows a lot about trees
      • Potentially it could be through dendrology - students could potentially do DBH measurements and baseline health questions
      • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin is working on developing an arboriculture class, could do some tree inventory as part to that class 
    • ​​​​​​​Set a goal in 2025 Tree Care Plan to develop a comprehensive plan for handling tree inventory updates: get a plan together for how to do a regular update and comprehensive update.

Dear iCAP team members,

Thank you for your service in helping to make the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a more sustainable campus. On behalf of iSEE Director Madhu Khanna, please find attached the charge letter for the 2025-2026 academic year with an outline of your campus sustainability duties as part of an iCAP team. We look forward to your positive and impactful contributions.

As a reminder, we will also hold an iCAP teams kickoff meeting tomorrow, Sept 9, from 4:30-5:30pm to talk about the contents of the charge letter and what to expect over the upcoming year. It would be great if you are able to join us in person at the National Soybean Research Center in room 337, but a Teams link is also available if you cannot make it in person. A recording will be available if you are not available during that time. Please let me know if you did not receive the calendar invite.

Thank you,

Miriam Keep

Sustainable Programs Coordinator

iSEE

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the August 2025 Buyer's Share amounts by the hour, totaling 860.60 Megawatt hours.

The August 2025 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.

Bike to Work Day Newsletter Link 

Pngs of the digital signs are attached below. Departmental screens will post the Bike to Work Day sign until Wednesday, September 10, 2025 and the Light the Night sign until Tuesday, September 16, 2025.

Email from Phillip Krein:

I wanted to update you on our EV charge infrastructure project. Tim Abrahamson supported us today from about 12:30pm to 2pm to gather circuit information in parking structures C10, C7, and B4. I owe Mike Brown an updated design report for our next-generation boxes, and of course we will not mount any new units until all is approved and Dave can inspect the setups. In the meantime, we learned the following:

In lot C10, four of our boxes can be supported without changes. The most likely plans place one each at the east and west columns on Level 2 and one each on those columns on Level 3.

In lot C7, it appears that five boxes can be supported.

In lot B4, we have chosen about all that are available (six units are in place).

For Krannert, there is one signed space where a unit can be mounted.

In F29 (the fire station and parking), it appears that four units can be supported, including three existing signed spaces.

In lot E15, there are NO receptacles that do not interfere with a walking path or equipment access path, so no units can be mounted there.

The total, including those in place, is 20 units. We are preparing 30 new units. I do have some plans for a few of them.

Philip Krein

We did observe that nearly all of these structures have potential for additional receptacle circuits, but this would require a project with wire pulls and infrastructure changes. Since we are talking about 120 V receptacles, such a project is routine, but obviously not trivial to set up and fund.

The results of the Campus Transportation Survey conducted earlier this spring have been analyzed to find the mode share of students and faculty/staff on their commute from residence to campus. The findings are detailed below:

• Of the 272 student respondents:
  • 35% take the bus
  • 8% drive alone
  • 21% bike
  • 33% walk/roll
  • 1% carpool/vanpool
  • 1% use other micromobility devices
• Of the 524 faculty/staff respondents:
  • 10% take the bus
  • 71% drive alone
  • 2% are dropped off
  • 9% bike
  • 5% walk/roll
  • 3% carpool/vanpool