The mission is simple: Provide bikes to every UVM student, enhancing campus sustainability and convenience alike.
Lets face it, bringing your own bike from home is a hassle. Lugging it from home to school, worrying about it being stolen, shoveling it out of snow in April and desperately trying to find a spot on the bike rack.
UVM’s bike share aims to solve these common problems, making your life a bit easier, and helping heal Mama Earth too.
About 90 Universities across the United States have introduced bike share programs on campus, and the positive results are overwhelming. The University of New England saw number of freshman who brought cars to campus decrease from 75% to 25% in first year of providing free bikes.
What does this mean to the average student? It means easy, free transportation to adventure anywhere your heart desires. It means less parking lot space used, providing space for recreational activities. It means less carbon emitted into the atmosphere for future generations to have to deal with.
As of March 28th, 2011 there are 5 “hubs” where 10 bikes are parked and ready for use. These hubs can be found on Redstone, Athletic, Trinity, Davis and Waterman. Students can simply join the program online by filling out a waiver, and bikes are obtained by swiping your catcard at the nearest front desk in return for a bike key.
UVM’s Bike Share is primarily equipped to provide bikes for short trips. For bike share members, the first two hours of bike use are free, and then an amount of $1 is charged hourly. Although it’s a bummer that there is a rate (even if it is only a dollar) it encourages the return of bikes for others to use, creating more revenue for this new project!
To learn more about UVM’s Bike Share program, check out the Bike User’s Group (BUG) page on the lynx!