An updated Bike at Illinois website has been under development and will be published in the next few weeks.

September is Champaign County Bike Month:

• Bike to Work Day is on Wednesday, September 10th, 7:00-10:00 am
• Light the Night is on Tuesday, September 16th, 4:00-7:00 pm

The C-U Bike Month Facebook page and cuBikeMonth.org will have announcements when BTWD registration opens later this month. The cuBikeMonth.org calendar already has several bike events listed for August through October.

Eco-Counter data for the month of July, 2025 collected on August 4, 2025.

iCAP Team recommendations are a vital part of our community engagement and public input procedures for campus sustainability.  Topical green teams with students, faculty, staff, and community members develop clear and specific recommendations for campus units to enact.  The recommendations are submitted to the iCAP Working Group chairs to route, according to the Formal Procedures.  The typical process includes four steps:

1) Submitted: iCAP Team submits the recommendation to the iWG chairs for review by the iCAP Working Group (iWG).

2) Transmitted: The iWG transmits their assessment of the recommendation to the applicable campus unit.

3) Approved: The unit that received the recommendation replies in the affirmative.

4) Successful: The recommendation has been implemented.

This year, Bike to Work Day will be held on Wednesday, September 10th, 2025 from 7-10 am, with a rain date of Thursday, September 11th. Welcome station hosts will be available to provide snacks, drinks, handouts, and incentives to people who bike to work that day. Welcome stations will be located around the U of I campus, Savoy, Downtown Urbana, and Downtown Champaign. 

One focus area in FY26 will be to narrow, update, and execute a new CAM policy as an update to BF-11, "Recycling, Recycled Products Procurement, and Waste Reduction". The goal of the updated CAM policy will be to ensure that all paper purchased on campus (except for submitted and approved justifications) will need to be at a minimum 30% post-consumer recycled content.

This project was called "Adopt Environmental Indicators to Guide Purchasing Standards" but the majority of discussions around it were referred to as "Environmentally Preferred Procurement (EPP)."  Therefore, the project title is changing herein to "Adopt Environmentally Preferred Procurement (EPP) Guidelines."

All bikes collected through the abandoned bicycles project have been inventoried as of today, 218 bicycles were collected. This inventory will be shared with appropriate campus units, marking the completion of Phase 3 of the project. If you believe your bike may have been impounded reach out to bike@illinois.edu with detailed information about your bike, including where you left it.

On July 25th, the bike ambassador and bike buddy questionnaire that was sent out June 28th and June 30th closed. In total, 12 responses were collected where one response was collected via a virtual interview. By examining various university, community, and cyclist organizations’ approaches to bike buddy and bike ambassador programs, the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign can better understand the benefits, challenges, and steps to implement such programs. Attached is a draft report and draft presentation that summarize the results of the research.

Miriam Keep inquired with F&S Building Maintenance & Grounds to record the Refrigerant data for the University. The table below shows the data from 2023:

The proposed project for a solar array at the Speech and Hearing building was deemed canceled due to the design study which found the roof unable to hold the solar array, as well as an informal shade assessment which found that the panels would not get all day sun due to the existing buildings.

Please see below a conversation between Morgan White, Jen Frattergio, and Paul Foote regarding this project:

On January 26, 2024 Paul said:

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Hello Jen,

I hope you are having an enjoyable Friday!

I have a quick question, Marth, Aman and I did a quick assessment of the Speech and Hearing bldg. for rooftop solar array and found it to be a poor source for solar insolation due to the Psychology bldg.. shadowing over it for the morning hours and

then there are some trees that block summer sun to the north and west as well.

We are tasked with submitting an IL Green Fund (SSC) application for this project and I am wondering if there is a reason this location was chosen and/or can we select another location that may produce higher outputs from the sola array?

Here is the charge language: Develop and submit an application to IL Green Fund (SSC) for rooftop Solar on Speech and Hearing Sciences Building in collaboration with stakeholders.

----------------------------------------------------

Jen forwarded the inquiry to Morgan White and Stacey DeLorenzo:

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Hi Morgan and Stacey,

See below for a question from Paul and the Energy Team.

Morgan, you had suggested the team apply for funding from the IL Green Fund (SSC) for rooftop solar on the Speech and Hearing Sciences Building. What was the reasoning behind this recommendation? Is a tool used or an analysis done to identify suitable buildings for installations?

-----------------------------------

Morgan replied:

Hi Jen,

Just to close the loop on this old question from 1.5 years ago…  There was an analysis of large roofs that could potentially be retrofitted with solar.  Many of the large roofs are made with gypsum board which is not strong enough for panels, and the remainder would require a structural analysis.  Someone said the Speech and Hearing Sciences Building was retrofitted with a different lower-weight type of insulation which should make it viable to handle the weight of solar panels.  We did an in-house assessment with F&S Design Services, and it was found that the roof could hold the weight of the panels.  Then the Student Sustainability Committee funded a full design, which was completed and is on the iCAP Portal / in F&S records.  The iCAP Energy Team pointed out that the new high-rises around the facility block a lot of the sunlight, so the project was essentially cancelled.  I think it would still be helpful to do a shade study for the building, and potentially it could have a green roof on it.  It is very visible from the Hub (one of the highrises nearby), so it could be a visible sign of our climate action.

All,
We’ve been working through some old stock of used parts that are too rusty/damaged to be worth keeping and scrapping them—mostly wheels and a few frames. Getting our stock of sale bikes up into the 20s, which is good but won’t be close to meeting demand. We have almost the same number of bikes available for our Build-a-Bike program, so hopefully folks will take advantage of that when our refurbished bikes sell out.

Last Friday morning F&S workers were finishing up repairing the outdoor bike pump—news I’m happy to report. On Friday, we also sold the kid’s bikes we had refurbished. In the high bike season, probably good to have a few of those fixed up, something we can quickly remedy this week.

This evening is the Bike Project Monthly Member Meeting, which I will attend. 

The numbers:
Visitors: 19
Sales: $611.50
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $175
Memberships: 8 for $240
Tires/tubes: 16 for $129

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

Today, members of the planning team attended the third meeting for Bike Month 2025. The team discussed sponsorships and advertising for Bike to Work Day as well as location and purchasing details for Light the Night. Attached is a document with agenda items and a document with roles & responsibilities.

Work Order (11267754) was created for Bike to Work Day tasks, these taks include the placement of tables, chairs, waste receptacles, and hand sanizter at the welcome stations. 

All,

Pretty slow week, except for the last hour on Friday—fittingly enough. We’re working through scrapping the remaining low-quality bikes that are only good for the occasional component here and there.

We had staff in on Tue/Thurs to help ramp up for sale production and we’ve made some headway there. We’ll continue the trend this week. Total for sale bikes is, I think, 15-20 with more in the queue.

The numbers:

Visitors: 15
Sales: $316
Membership: 1  for $30
Tires/tubes: 14 for $129

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

This morning, Sarthak, Emily, Ricardo, and Max began Phase 3 of the abandoned bicycles project: inventorying the impounded bicycles. Completion of this process is anticipated by 7/30.

Emily is continuing to work on researching bicycle ambassador and bike buddy programs. As of July 18th, the form Emily sent out to various universities, municipalities, and organizations, on June 27th, has received 11 responses. Only 2 responses are from groups with bicycle ambassador programs and 2 from bike buddy programs. On July 17th, Emily interviewed a research specialist at the New Jersey Bike and Pedestrian Resource Center at Rutgers University about their former New Jersey Ambassadors in Motion Program. The call was very informational especially when it came to learning about the biggest successes from the program and the challenges that forced it to disband. Emily and the research specialist also discussed other bike programs and bike infrastructure at the university that were relevant to the New Jersey Ambassadors in Motion Program.  

While the form is open until July 25th, the current information that has been gathered can be useful for understanding potential events, applications, and procedures that students are responsive to in order to implement a bike buddy and bike ambassador program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Attached is a pdf of notes from the call and another pdf of notes from the form.

A survey of the bike repair stations on campus was completed on 7/17/2025. The survey found that several stations had faulty pumps and missing tools, problems which F&S will seek to fix. A PDF of the survey is attached to this project update.

Work Order (11267458) was created to purchase Bike to Work Day T-Shirts

Following are Sarthak Prasad's notes from the introductory meeting on 7/16/2025.

Attended By: Eliana Brown, Layne Knoche, Andrea Wagner, Madelyn Craft, Ashley Belle, Justin Vozzo, Sarthak Prasad, Stirling Lemme

• Introductions happened
• Lumpkin Family Foundation
  
  • Greater C-U project
• Demo area on campus showing benefit of having native plants under established trees especially around ROW
  
  • Carbon sequestration
  • Some additional support of mature trees
• On the ground implementation
• Community Outreach
• Tree Management stepping stone
  
  • Making changes around the south quad area
  • Developing areas - underplanting similar to RORG
  • There is evidence in improving tree health with these plantings
• Even as a small area as a demo area

• What support are you they expecting?
  
  • Similar to RORG
    
    • Ryan and his crew for mulch
    • Support for coordination with the specific trees
    • Coordinating work orders
    • Additioanl treatments to the trees if necessary
    • To establish it - we would need of Ryan's group to kill the grass (herbicide application - maybe 2)
    • Application in August and September (1 month apart)
    • Areas that are not sidewalk bound - F&S uses a edge trencher
  • Check with county master gardener - arborists,
  • Low maintenance plantings
    
    • So that it is easy for implementation
• Providing materials to the people in the community

 Location

 Stay away from the main stretch on the quad

• What is the scale?
  
  • One tree - 200 sq ft garden?
  • South Quad?
• The foundation may be supportive of a larger scale project if there is sufficient/appropriate maintenance support available
  
  • We don’t want a difficult maintenance
  • Smaller spaces preferred
• Kirby Ave - South side strip between First and Oak
  
  • Very high visibility
  • Very high traffic
  • Salt
  • So there may be a chance that this area might fail -
  • Outside of scope - too big of an area
• Different native species around different trees in the same area-
  
  • Several small pockets of areas

• Architecture Building area - opposite to the Main Library - Preferred (First preference)
  
  • Gregory Dr
  • We want to have people from the community to be able to see and access this area - this area is a bit restrictive
• Trees around Krannert Center (Second preference)
  
  • Really great for Community
• West side of Armory
  
  • Construction upcoming - so don’t use this area 

Timeline

• Letter of intent due at the end of this month
• Letter of support
  
  • No need for the location
• Grants start -
  
  • October would be the start planning
    
    • For a year
    • Opportunity for multiple years - if you do a good job
  • We need the location for the application

• Application deadline  - September 5

• When do we plant?
  
  • Planning over the winter -
  • Spring 2026 (May) or Fall 2026 (September) planting
• When do we get the ARC approval?
  
  • August meeting

Funding

• Average grant allocation - $25k and max is $50k.
  
  • Would campus kick in some money?
    
    • SSC money

Maintenance

• MOU

To-do

• Letter of Support - due at the application process