With Free Bikes, Challenging Car Culture on Campus

It sure looks like a combination of gas costs, the economy, sustainability, and even fitness considerations (No more Freshman Fifteen!) has created a strong push toward bicycle use on campus: (And a recent related article is College Students Adapt to High Gas Prices; plus once you get the students using bikes, then you have more problems as noted in Stanford U. Tries to Calm Bike Traffic at 'Intersection of Death'.

The University of New England and Ripon College in Wisconsin are giving free bikes to freshmen who promise to leave their cars at home. Other colleges are setting up free bike sharing or rental programs, and some universities are partnering with bike shops to offer discounts on purchases.

The goal, college and university officials said, is to ease critical shortages of parking and to change the car culture that clogs campus roadways and erodes the community feel that comes with walking or biking around campus.

“We’re seeing an explosion in bike activity,” said Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, a nonprofit association of colleges and universities. “It seems like every week we hear about a new bike sharing or bike rental program.”