New bike-related projects, such as installing more bike racks, opening bike repair stations and encouraging students to wear helmets are being carried out on campus this quarter in an effort to make campus biking safer and easier.
Several members of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and the DU Sustainability Committee played a role in starting these projects, including USG Senator Daniel Powell and DU student James Tyson, a graduate student University College Environmental Policy and Management Program.
With the numerous projects underway for the DU biking population, Tyson also reiterates bike safety, including one of the most basic safety protocols of cycling, wearing a helmet.
“We try to encourage it as much as we can. I certainly wear mine all the time,” Tyson said.
“I’d like to see more students wearing helmets and being safer, both skateboarders and bikers, especially with the safety issues we’ve had. There have been two deaths on campus and that’s why we want to…get the community on board with the issue.”
Powell partnered with Tyson to bring new fix-it stations—similar to what is outside of Nagel Hall, a one stop maintenance tool kit—to campus and install additional bike racks to control bike parking complications.
“There’s student concern about the racks being really full,” said Powell. “I was walking around Olin and they were packed and I thought ‘this isn’t going to work.’ So we’re in the process right now of working on bike issues revolving around that.”
To complete the project, USG and Tyson are partnering with DU and Cora Bike Racks Inc. According to Tyson, everything is in place for the racks to be installed at various academic buildings around campus by the end of the school year, with racks going in areas with the “greatest need for expansion.”
Johnson-McFarlane Hall is one of those locations, and usable bike racks are currently being painted in preparation for installation there. The Department of Campus Safety and other facilities have also notified Tyson of additional locations where stands are needed, including Sturm Hall and Daniels College of Business.
Another project will be the opening of additional bike “fix-it” stations, similar to the one in Nagel Hall. The station in Nagel was received very favorably this year, according to Powell, who says another station will be installed outside of the Anderson Academic Commons (AAC) by the end of October.
In an effort to provide even more accessibility to DU cyclists, Tyson and DU Bicycle Transportation have also asked DU for approval for more stations to be installed throughout the year, including sites near Centennial Towers and the Ritchie Center. For now, the station planned for AAC remains the only approved station.
Additionally, by the end of the school year, Tyson looks to continue to renovate Nagel Underground primarily into a bike maintenance center for students to use free of charge. Tyson hopes to create a teachable setting for students interested in handling and repairing bikes.
“We’re going to start running classes out of here and install a projector. We will have our mechanics staff the room for quite a while, which is what this space is meant for,” Tyson said. “Hopefully we can get money from the Sustainability Committee and [USG] to sustain the program, as well as registration fees in the future.”
Eventually, students will be hired mechanics.
