Police want to end misuse of bike racks
Many students riding their bikes to school have been forced to chain their bikes to trees, said Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police Department.
The cause for this is that many students locked their bikes in the racks at the beginning of the semester and just left them there for months, Milne said. This leaves no spots for those that ride their bikes to campus every day and need a spot to temporarily secure their bicycle.
“A lot of students are coming up and leaving their bikes in the bike rack for a long period of time. Not just for the day,” Milne said. “So other people that ride their bike up just for the day, there’s no place to lock their bikes in the bike racks. Then they start chaining them to the guardrails and to the trees and stuff like that.”
According to Utah State University policy, locking bikes to structures other than approved bicycle racks is prohibited. The policy also states that if bikes are locked to other structures then the bicycles will be impounded.
Sgt. Travis Dunn of the USUPD said there were about 100 bikes that had just been left in the bike racks.
Each of the bicycles that had been left in the campus racks for an extended period of time was tagged, Dunn said. The tags said the bike locks would be cut and the bikes would be impounded after seven days if they weren’t removed or registered. Dunn said he allowed the bikes to be there for two weeks instead of one in order to give the students the time they needed.
Of the 100 bikes tagged, only five were left in the racks at the end of the 14 days, Dunn said.The fee to retrieve a bike that has been impounded is $25 for the first time and $50 for the second time. Dunn is in charge of handling student bike registrations and said he wouldn’t charge students who come to pick up one of these bikes if they register the bicycle.
Milne said he wants students to know they shouldn’t be leaving their bicycles in the racks for storage purposes.
“Don’t use the bike racks as a storage,” Milne said. “Use them if you’re up there for the day. That’s what they’re there for.”
Dunn said he’d rather people throw their bikes in a dumpster or give them to Aggie Blue Bikes if they don’t want their bikes anymore.
“Just don’t leave them abandoned for us to deal with,” Dunn said. “We deal with hundreds of abandoned bicycles every year.”
Milne and Dunn said in order to avoid impounding a lot of bikes, they’re encouraging students to register their bikes. Students can register their bikes at the USUPD for free.
Students that live in campus housing are now required to register their bikes when they move in, Milne said. Students who register their bikes will be given a sticker to put on their bikes.
Milne said registered bikes that are left in the racks on campus won’t be impounded like unregistered bikes. Instead, the owner of the bicycle will be called and asked to remove the bike at no expense.
Dunn said if bikes are found blocking the sidewalks, the USUPD will cut the locks and impound the bikes.
“They’re breaking policy that way and it’s endangering people’s lives,” Dunn said. “If there’s a fire and we evacuate the building and there’s a bike in the way, it’s not a good thing.”
– blaze.bullock@aggiemail.usu.edu