Please see attached the final presentation for the CTAC fall 2022. Watch the meeting recording here: https://uofi.box.com/s/6fp2xuq2qnwv4vgm34itku4pbdy2bioy
[11.7.22] All, Last week we completed the bike donation event with Working Bikes. Thanks to some Bike Project volunteers we were able to pack their truck full of bikes in about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, they were unable to take all of the abandoned bikes as there are about 50 left. I’ll work with TBP to deal with the remaining junk bikes as well as the ~200 we’ll keep for refurbishment.
Last Thursday we were donated another pull-behind trailer, upping our count to 3 of them now. I will discuss with TBP ideas to make better use of these, as they take up a lot of space and we have zero demand for them.
This week we will reinstate the First Visit Free policy as the cooler weather sets in.
The numbers:
Visitors: 47
Sales: $508
Bike (refurbished): 1 for $225
Memberships: 1 for $30
Tires/tubes: 12 for $61
[11.14.22]
All, I was out sick for a portion of the non-open hours, but we were still able to get a few bikes on the sales floor and strip some bikes. This week I’ll grab some more of the good bikes from the barn and we’ll get to fixing those. We reinstated First Visit Free and were able to help folks get rolling.
I had an interview last Friday with a potential new hire and we’ll be having a staff meeting this week to get some of our new staff up to speed as well as provide a refresher for the returning staffers.
Next week we will be closed for Thanksgiving break. We’ll reopen Monday, 11/28/22.
The numbers:
Visitors: 45
Sales: $434
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $100
Memberships: 4 for $120
Tires/tubes: 8 for $103
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
All, While my jury duty service was still in effect, we had reduced hours as needed last week but were able to open fully Wed – Fri. It was the first week of noticeably fewer folks through the doors. As such, we got a few bikes on the sales floor and a dozen or so moved over from storage.
Tomorrow we will host Working Bikes for our donation event. This is the first one since Nov 2019. We’ll have around 200 bikes to donate and hopefully will have a few folks available to help out and make it go quicker. They’ll be providing pizza for us, too. This event will halve the number of bikes left in storage. The Bike Project and I will sort through the remaining bikes in the coming weeks.
The numbers:
Visitors: 43
Sales: $475.50
Build-a-Bikes: 2 for $100
Memberships: 4 for $120
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
All, Big week of events! On Tuesday, Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns is speaking at the Illinois Terminal and I’ll attend to see how our work as bike advocates and a non-profit can help bolster a strong and vibrant community. And Wednesday is the Illinois Bike Summit at the I-hotel. I’ll be there all day and reducing hours at the Bike Center to account for that. Accordingly, we’ll be open 4 – 6p on that day. I never fail to learn something at this yearly event and am happy to see it back here on campus.
I’ll be counting/organizing bikes for donation as well this week. Hope to have the Donation Day set by end of the week and so we can begin rallying for some support/help. WB has already agreed to pay for Manolo’s!
The numbers:
Visitors: 51
Sales: $1,214.50
Memberships: 17 for $510
Tire/tubes: 8 for $94
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
All, Slower times here at the Bike Center (in terms of visitors). We’re almost slow enough that we can reinstate the First Visit Free policy. Not quite there, as we’ll have lulls but pick back up again.
It was discovered that the CBC Google Business hours were not updated when we moved to M – F, which explains why we we’ve been so slow on Tues/Thurs. That has since been corrected so we’ll see if that impacts visit numbers this week.
Last week I started sorting bikes at the warehouse for shipment/donation. We’ll be saving even more bikes than usual as we’re critically low on consumable parts like tires.
We managed to rehab a Huffy to an acceptable degree. The frame was in good shape and we piloted a new freewheel system that should hopefully help keep those types of bikes rideable for longer. That bike sold in about 20 minutes. Demand for cheap bikes is evergreen.
This week I’ll do more sorting at the warehouse and coordinating the donation, an interview or two, and otherwise business-as-usual.
The numbers:
Visitors: 78
Sales: $479.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $70
Memberships: 5 for $150
Tires/tubes: 9 for $58
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
All, With the onset of cooler weather, we have seen a decrease in visitor numbers. But that has also correlated with a decrease in available for sale bikes.
Last week I had an iSEE student come by to interview me and talk all things bikes, so I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that story. All publicity is good publicity!
This week I’ll start counting/sorting bikes for the Working Bikes donation—actual date TBD—including moving some of the keeper bikes to the Bike Center to replenish our stock of B-a-Bs and For Sales.
The numbers:
Visitors: 72
Sales: $958.25
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $135
Memberships: 14 for $420
Tires/tubes: 15 for $70
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
The bicycle retrieval for abandoned bicycles that were impounded over the summer 2022 has completed, as of September 23, 2022. We had collected nearly 500 bicycles over the summer, and 24 bicycles were retrieved by the owners. The remaining bicycles will be donated to the Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign and Campus Bike Center for refurbishment, resale, and recycle. Nearly 60% of these unclaimed bicycle will be donated to Working Bikes, a not-for-profit bike shop which fixes up old cycles for sale or to be donated to global communities.
All, Real busy times last week. Shop was manageably busy, but we had BTWD and LTN on consecutive days. Both events went well. I spent more time at the DRES stop than the Bike Center station, which was a new experience. Lots of folks on that route, and I was able to talk route-planning and commuting strategy with some people new to commuting. Weather cooperated swimmingly.
We had a deluge of completed B-a-Bs last week. Always good to see the smiling faces of rewarded effort. Marketing folks came by and updated some of our filing cabinets and bins with printed (legible) labels and photos of contents to better help people find and identify parts. We’re still slower on Tue/Thurs as we work to get the word out that we’re now open those days as well.
We’ll work this week on a couple shop builds we’ve been too busy to finish, prep for the abandoned bike giveaway, and clean shop as we’ve been too busy to do much of any of that in the last two weeks.
The numbers:
Visitors: 86
Sales: $1,084.30
Bikes (B-a-B): 3 for $150
Memberships: 17 for $510
Tires/tubes: 10 for $59
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
Phase 3 of the project was to inventory all the bicycles at Round Barn. With the help of Nathaniel Nevins and Sathish Ravipatti, Sarthak Prasad finished the inventory of all the impounded bicycles by August 15, 2022.
Sarthak Prasad spent nearly 50 hours during the tagging, confirming, and inventorying phases of this project.
All, We’re quickly approaching zero stock for refurbished bikes. One particularly eager patron bought two of our more expensive road bikes back-to-back last week. Thankfully, we received 3 bikes in very-good-to-great condition that should—fingers crossed—be on the sales floor for Wednesday.
We’re in the beginning stages of clearing out abandoned bikes. Approximately 200 will go to CBC/TBP so that’ll help our inventory. The abandoned bikes at the rack in front of the bike center were cut this morning, cleaning up and clearing space for folks to lock there. We’ll be better able to see if any donations have been left, as well.
The numbers:
Visitors: 21
Sales: $1,646.75
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $1,025
B-a-B: 1 for $50
Tires/tubes: 15 for $113
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
All the abandoned bicycles were impounded and transported to the Round Barns by Parking department by July 29, 2022. Parking would send the F&S TDM department an invoice for this project.
Illinois Newsroom article by Sydney Wood about "University of Illinois tags students’ bicycles with stickers for campus bike clean-up." Read the article attached or read it online at: https://illinoisnewsroom.org/the-university-of-illinois-tags-students-bi...
217Today broadcasted an interview about the removal of abandoned bicycles on campus as part of the campus clean up process. You can listen to the interview at the 2:10 minute mark in this episode.
Also, check out the Illinois Public Media WILL episode for July 15, 2022 here: https://will.illinois.edu/217today/episode/217-today-to-atone-for-racial...
Any bicycle that still had the orange tag, were confirmed to be abandoned and marked in the ArcGIS Field Maps application. This phase was completed by end of June. Parking was asked to remove all the abandoned bicycles after the July 4th weekend. Parking started removing bicycles after July 9th.
Fox news picked up the F&S Announcement about Abandoned Bicycles on 6/30/22. Read this article below or online at: https://foxillinois.com/news/local/u-of-i-dont-leave-your-bikes-behind
Also attached is the pdf of this announcement.
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U of I: Don't leave your bikes behind
Thursday, June 30th 2022
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCCU/WICS) — The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign is dealing with an abandoned bicycle problem.
Each summer the staff with the University of Illinois Facilities & Services and the parking department identify and collect unwanted bicycles on campus.
Any bike left on university property gets an orange sticker that reads, "Remove this tag by 6/30/22, or your bicycle will be removed."
If the bicycle is still there on Tuesday, July 5 it will be impounded.
If your bike has been removed and you'd like it back, email bike@illinois.edu with your bicycle information.
If you have an old bicycle you'd like to donate, you can drop it off at the Campus Bike Center (51 Gregory Drive, Champaign) or the Bike Project of Urbana (202 S. Broadway Avenue, Room 24).
Click here for more information.
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Initial tagging was completed by June 20, 2022
Started the tagging of all bicycles left on campus on June 4, 2022.
Brandon Alexander, from Parking, printed and delivered about 3000 orange sticker tags for us to use for the abandoned bicycle project. Sarthak's intern added the "Remove by" date and the "Tag ID" to each of these tags. See attached the tag
Sarthak Prasad worked with Chad Kupferschmid, from F&S FIR, to develop an electric way to tag bicycles on campus and mark them on a GIS based map. Chad developed the Field Maps application for this project. We would use it in three phases:
Phase 1: Initial tagging of the bicycles - Only Tag ID and Comments section available
Phase 2: Confirming the abandoned bicycles - New field (Abandoned or not) would be available
Phase 3: Inventory of the impounded bicycles - Once confirmed, the Parking department would remove the bicycle and transport them to the Round Barns, where Sarthak Prasad along with his intern will inventory all the impounded bicycles. During this phase, more fields - Make/model information, Bike Registration information, Serial Number information, pictures, etc. would be available
This app was ready for us to use by the end of May
