If you ask anyone what their perceived image of a typical college campus would be, chances are that bicycles would be included somewhere in their description. A relatively cheap and easily available option for transportation around campus, bicycles, are a common sight around residence halls and classrooms across the country.
A 2010 study published by the University of Auckland indicates that if only five percent of yearly vehicular travel was switched from cars to bicycles, we would save almost 600 thousand gallons of fuel.
So, what’s the problem? Bicycles are easily accessible and so widespread around college campuses that their image is nearly synonymous with college itself. Well there is another stereotypical pitfall of college campuses that bicycles also unfortunately fall in to. There’s simply nowhere to put them all.
All around TAMUK campus during the middle of school days and the rush of students from class to class, the observant eye can notice that the bike racks are overflowing with bicycles of all shapes and sizes, so crowded that a few latecomers can be seen chaining their bicycles to trees, handrails, fences, other bicycles and pretty much anything else they can fit a bike lock around. This is a problem for several reasons.
The first and most important reason is that the lack of infrastructure present for students who ride bicycles to school each day is discouraging to the layman who has to resort to chaining their bicycle to some other object, where it can prove to be an obstruction, take up additional space and can possibly even be stolen. Statistics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) show that $1,068,408 worth of bicycles was stolen between the years of 2011 and 2015, showing that it can and does happen. For the average college student’s income, the approximate $100 loss that comes with losing a bicycle could mean all the difference.
Another reason is that these issues can be easily avoidable by the installation of additional bike racks around campus. The existing ones are pushed to their maximum capacity on a daily basis, which gives justification for infrastructure expansion. The installation of more bike racks is as simple as placing them outside the buildings and residence halls around campus.
The Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s Office of Campus Sustainability’s webpage shows that .04 metric tons of carbon dioxide are emitted by fossil fuels for every 100 miles travelled by vehicle. The existence of the Office of Campus Sustainability shows that TAMUK cares for the environment, and these goals are ones that we should all follow for a cleaner future. Bicycles play an important role in conserving fuel and lowering emissions, so it’s high time we got enough space to put them all.
