Logan becoming bike-friendly
The Utah State University Community Bike Coalition is working to get Logan designated as an official Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists.
“What we’re doing now is making history,” Adam Christensen, a student who is chairperson of the coalition, said. “What this does affects everybody.”
Christensen is also coordinator of Aggie Blue Bikes, USU’s bike-borrowing program.
According to the League of American Bicyclists, headquartered in Washington, D.C., bicycle-friendly communities “are places where people feel safe and comfortable riding their bikes for fun, fitness and transportation.” It also promotes biking as a way to reduce traffic and improve air quality and public health.
Kevin Kobe, director of campus recreation, summed up the USUCBC’s goal as “more people on more bikes more often.”
Thanks to a change in the walkway policy last spring, bikes are allowed anywhere, anytime on campus, as long as they are ridden at walking speed. The old policy required students to register bikes before riding them on campus and no bikes were permitted between 7 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Coalition members are making efforts to encourage people to ride instead of drive. Kobe is making a presentation on the league’s bicycle-friendly communities for the Logan City Council Tuesday. Three council members have agreed to ride their bikes with him to the meeting.
Communities are chosen for the bike-friendly designation based on education and encouragement of bicyclists, enforcement of bike laws and engineering, evaluation and planning efforts for bicycling. Once chosen, a community is awarded one of four levels: bronze, silver, gold or platinum and a highway-quality road sign is presented at a local ceremony.
Among the coalition’s ideas to improve conditions for bikers were having bike lanes painted on walkways, providing more bike parking – both covered and uncovered – and especially educating bikers and pedestrians about the rules of the road.
Bob Bayn, associate director of network and computing services, said he liked seeing the prominence education had in the USUCBC’s mission statement. Many students are concerned with the possibility of more accidents because of increased bike traffic on campus.
One of the ideas the coalition had was an overnight parking garage for bikes so students could take the shuttle to campus and then ride bikes to class.
Christensen showed the coalition the results Aggie Blue Bikes has seen in its 30 days of operation. Seven students who borrowed bikes reported the number of miles traveled – a total of 245 miles. Christensen computed pounds of carbon dioxide saved, money saved and calories burned. In all, 264.6 pounds of carbon dioxide were saved from being released into the air, $175.42 was saved and 9983.75 calories were burned.
“They would have lost an average of 2.5 pounds over 30 days,” Christensen said. Aggie Blue Bike’s concerns, as stated in its mission statement, are “to promote health, sustainable communities and to better the air quality in Cache valley.”
-ella@cc.usu.edu