Since the passage of ASMSU’s bike share plan one year ago, MSU’s undergraduate student government has been almost totally silent on the status of the program.
The bike share program, which was initially set to be fully functional on campus by August of last year, has been a uniquely difficult service for ASMSU and their partners to launch. Now, it appears the beginning of the bike share’s trial phase has again been pushed back, this time until March.
The program, which passed last January, called for the allocation of $60,000 to the special projects fund to purchase 40 rentable bikes from Zagster, a bike rental company. Besides the bikes, costs also included maintenance on the installation of the bike share racks, year-round maintenance, technical support and marketing.
That plan has since changed and, “Zagster is no longer involved,” ASMSU’s Vice President for Finance and Operations Greg Jackson said.
Then last October, The State News reported that instead of fully investing in the program right away, less than $5,000 had been allotted for the trial program, which was originally set to launch before this winter.
It is now set to launch by the middle of March this year, ASMSU officials said and clarified ASMSU’s relationship to the program’s partners.
Jackson said ASMSU is coordinating “an equal share” of the program with MSU’s Campus Sustainability.
“We are going with a low-tech trial run — its not high-tech where you can go online and search bikes yet,” assistant director of the Office of Campus Sustainability Kris Jolley said. “Right now we just weren’t ready for the Zagster model.”
Eight bikes from the MSU bike store will be located at Bailey Hall in Brody Neighborhood and left for students to rent for the rest of the academic year. Students who wish to rent a bike will provide their MSU ID to the Bailey Hall front desk and receive a key to one of the bikes for a 24-hour period. The trial program will be pivotal in ASMSU’s decision to expand the program or not.
“Either I or my predecessor as the vice president for finance and operations position will assess the actual feasibility of continuing the bike share program – if we want to expand, if we want to keep it at Bailey for the summer and so on,” Jackson said.
The trial program will be utilizing traditional locks for the bikes, unlike the docking systems seen in large bike share programs in major cities. Jolley said the technology and its cost have been “big obstacles” for the program.
“Just having one bike rack at Bailey Hall is not what we want long-term. We want racks all over campus, but we need technology to do that. And that technology is emerging,” Jolley said.
It isn’t just the cost of technology, though.
“This winter we had snow the first week in November, so you can really only safely ride with no training or experience for three or four months of the school year,” he said. “From a cost model perspective, we have a short season for the average rider.”
Demand for bikes in winter months is dramatically lower and safety for the average rider drops. ASMSU and MSU Campus Sustainability have taken that into consideration during their planning.
“As bikers we must be highly aware of our surroundings, especially on a busy campus like MSU. ... ASMSU is committed to that safety, and the bike program is an excellent concept aimed at helping MSU diversify their eco-friendly transportation options,” said Avery Bell, ASMSU’s College of Communication Arts and Science representative and an avid biker.
While the bike share program has proved much harder to launch than originally expected, ASMSU’s leadership has emphasized it is being implemented to best service students at MSU. They stress that ASMSU and their partners in Campus Sustainability have not wasted large sums of student tax dollars on this program and they do not intend to — regardless of how long the program’s implementation takes.
If the trial program is deemed a success, the Office of Campus Sustainability said students can expect an expansion of the bike share program and an upgrade in rental technology on campus.
