Campus leaders are developing a plan to potentially bring a bike sharing system to Ohio University.
A member of Ohio University Student Senate wants to decrease travel time for students making the cross-campus trek between classes with a new, environmentally friendly transportation system.
Mary Murray, senate’s engineering and technology senator, posted a Twitter poll Feb. 11 asking OU students if they would use a bike-share system on campus. Of the 387 people who voted, 57 percent said they would use bike sharing if such a system existed.
“Right now, we’re just in the planning and gathering information phase,” Murray said. “I’m just trying to gauge student interest, that’s the biggest thing.”
Her idea for a bike-share system spurred from a conversation with an industrial systems engineering professor during her senate office hours earlier this month, she said.
“He and the assistant engineering dean were talking about how students walking from Morton to Stocker, specifically, can’t get to class on time,” she said. “They said that their walk takes about 14 or 15 minutes, which I can tell you is true. It’s impossible to get to class on time when those classes are back-to-back.”
The possibility of a bike-share on OU’s campus has been explored before, Hashim Pashtun, president of International Student Union, said.
Pashtun first considered bikes as a mass transportation system while working on a project about transportation in Athens as the vice president of Graduate Student Senate.
“Before bike share, we had the idea of subsidizing the cost of bikes to encourage biking,” he said. “For example, we talked to Wal-Mart, and you just show your Bobcat ID there and you get 20 percent discount on your bike, but that was the first plan.”
At the end of January, Pashtun traveled to the Transportation Research Board Conference in Washington, D.C., where he met several companies with specific bike-share plans for college campuses.
“Portland, Oregon, has a very good bike program,” Noah Hajivandi, Student Senate’s Environmental Affairs vice commissioner, said. “Other cities are looking into this, so I’m glad that Athens is.”
After researching other universities who operate bike-share programs, such as Indiana University and Texas A&M University, Pashtun said a company might not be the best option for Athens, a small town with unique terrain.
A pilot program made possible by fundraising and installation help from the engineering program was suggested as an alternative.
“We have engineering students who can develop a system where you can swipe your card,” Pashtun said. “We can buy the bikes on our own, which means the money spent will go back to the Athens community. More jobs will be created, the campus will be more eco-friendly, more healthy and more fit.”
A bike-share system in Appalachian Ohio presents some challenges, though.
“One is the terrain of Athens, because it’s up and down, hilly, which of course kind of discourages students,” Pashtun said. “The second thing is the climate, because out of 12 months, three to four cannot be bike friendly, and three months in the summer almost half of students are not on campus."
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Murray and Pashtun agree that the next steps involve conversations with the administration. If the pair is able to get community members, bike-related organizations and the administration on board, fundraising will need to follow, Pashtun said.
Kileah Osmun, a freshman studying communication studies, said bike sharing is a good idea.
"I feel like a lot of people here would use it," Osmun said. "It would definitely be more beneficial than driving cars all the time. On weekends, it would be fun just to rent a bike and ride around Athens because it's so pretty here."
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