By now, you may have seen or heard of people taking advantage of the Student Government’s bike lending program. The program allows any student a free, six-hour bike rental, complete with all the needed gear. A helmet, lock and saddlebag are included with the rental.
This program represents tremendous progress for the SG and is a valuable service to students. Anecdotally, most people know someone who either bikes to class from an off-campus apartment or uses her bike to access Tenleytown or downtown D.C. more easily. Some students, however, have been unable to realize these benefits for a variety of reasons. Getting a bike onto campus can be both expensive and difficult, especially if students don’t live in D.C. during the summer. The SG bike-lending program opens the city to these under-served students.
While the bike-lending program is money well spent and is an especially tangible example of tuition dollars working for the benefit of students, the launch of the program also represents a great victory for the SG. The program has been in the pipeline for a long time.
Originally piloted in the spring of 2007, the project initially received a quiet reception and was moderately successful.
Given that the program just began officially this semester, the program’s launch speaks highly to the efforts given by the different SG executive boards involved to maintain continuity of communication throughout the project’s development. Given the interruptions and distractions posed by incidents with the comptroller and AUTO commissioner earlier this year, the SG should be commended for overcoming adversity and pulling through with a program that will benefit students.
The benefits of the program will also have positive spillover effects on the campus community in general. The six bikes available for free rental may encourage those who use their own bikes infrequently to leave them home, freeing up overcrowding on the campus’s bike racks.
Strides in sustainability are significant too — if students have free green transportation options available to them, chances are they’ll use them in lieu of less environmentally-friendly options — at least to some extent.
Now, the SG should focus on active promotion of the program, and to this point, it has been doing a good job. Campus-wide e-mails in SG notifications, a Web site and good visibility all help to show students that the program is up and running.
Given the relatively streamlined application and release process, it seems that bike-lending at AU is finally ready for the prime time.
