How to encourage more cyclists to ride to and from campus?

[Unruh11a]

I am a third year environmental engineering student in Regins, Saskatchean. Currently I am working at the University for the summer and I am doing a report titled "How can the University encourage more people to cycle to and from campus?" I would appreciate any comments or suggestions people may have.

 

[Cbass]

I've biked to/from/at school for a few years now, and that's definately not an easy question that you're proposing. One thing that helped me out was when I found out about the shower/locker facilities at school. It was really easy to get to school, go to the shower/lockers and put my stuff in there, take a quick shower (so I didn't stink for all the pretty ladies) and then cruise over to my classes. I could just leave all my cycling stuff in the locker for the day ($0.25/day) and then it would all be there ready for me when it was time to go home. Of course, I always use my commute as a training ride, so I work up quite the sweat.

For people who are just leisurely riding to school, one thing that may help is lockers placed in various places around campus that are easily accessible to bikes. I know I don't want to lug around my shoes and helmet to every class, I would rather stash them somewhere. Maybe make it so you can just swipe your student card in the locker lock and it'll open or something like that. You wouldn't need very many of them around campus, just enough to be used.

Anyway, just my .02 cents

 

[JohnO]

Convenience and economy. If it's expensive to do one thing, and convenient to do another, they'll go for it.

Convenience: Good bike paths, maybe even covered bike paths in heavily traveled areas. Make cycling a practical alternative by getting bikes away from heavy auto traffic, and as much as possible, out of the rain. Close some campus streets to auto traffic, so it's either ride the bike or walk.

Economy: Charge out the wazoo for parking, and/or limit the number of parking spaces. $10/day to park, or ride a bike and pay nothing. Never underestimate the motivation to be found in personal profit.

 

[meehs]

Offer free beer and cigarettes to students that cycle.

 

[aTmSpectre]

Offer free beer and cigarettes to students that cycle.

sign me up.

seriously though, perhaps a tuition refund or something if you dont' buy a parking pass.

 

[Long5686]

It kind of scares me the thought of more people riding to class. Ive been twice by bikers while walking to class. Even at our school where the parking is horrible most people still dont ride bikes.

 

[rek]

1. Showers
2. Rentable locker facilities
3. Secure, well-lit areas for people to lock their bikes (well as secure as a university campus can feasibly be)

Other things you might want to do is produce a map with some 'safe for cycling' roads mapped out onto it, showing how you can get from various parts of the city onto the campus in the safest/least intimidating manner, and provide fact sheets as to what the campus provides for commuter cyclists (i.e. the three things mentioned above, amongst other things)

 

[ausgirl]

I agree with everything that's been said so far. Expecially the lockers, because we don't have any at our uni & the lockers would be used by everyone - not just cyclists, but also the people who don't want to carry 5 or 6 textbooks around all day. Maybe if you had bike racks outside of a building and lockers just inside the building's foyer for extra security. If you let people rent lockers by the week, month or year that would be good too, becaue a lot of people won't want to go to the hassle of carting clothes in every day and if they've already got some shirts, jeans and a toiletries bag in a locker at uni, that would make things easier.

Also some free talks on road rules and safety by a bike shop or department of transport to help people who haven't ridden much in years, or are foreign and don't know the road rules

 

[Telegram Sam]

Pop some car tires...

No seriously, I live in California where the riding is almost always nice and so is the weather, and I was surprised at the few bicycles on our campus (also known for it's environmental studies program, and it's enormous parking lot). Myself, I rode everyday...seventies era Schwinn tricycle that I restored. The reason I rode was that parking was exorbant and always a nightmare (ie buy the $100 pass and park six blocks away anyway) Even with a bike that garnered some attention, I was never shown a locker, or a shower, or any parking incentive.
Good luck in your endeavors, I hope that you can sway some of the higher ups at the school to make the campus a more cycle friendly (or gas unfriendly as it may be) institution