This past Wednesday, Parking and Transportation Services launched a new program that will blend blue and green to encourage a cleaner, healthier campus. Bicycling at UB, in conjunction with local organization Buffalo Blue Bicycle, aims to create a more bicycle-friendly campus by providing a rental service and adding bike racks to all UB Stampede buses.
"Our goal is to get everyone bicycling at UB. It's a healthy, green initiative that provides us with a valuable transportation alternative," said Maria Wallace, director of Parking and Transportation Services.
Students, faculty and staff can now either rent the painted, metallic blue bikes from various hubs on all three campuses, or register their own bikes with Parking and Transportation Services.
The process for renting the bikes will be similar to renting a movie, said Chris Austin, associate director of Parking and Transportation Services. Students can check in on BBB's website to choose the duration of their rental, which can be up to two days, and then get the code for a bike lock so they can go get it when they need to.
According to Justin Booth, the founder and director of BBB, members of the UB community can have access to the rental service for either a donation of $25 or six hours of volunteer work in the workshop.
"One aspect of (the program) is renting bikes from BBB, the other aspect is being able to build your own bikes," Booth said. "We teach the volunteers everything, including simple maintenance skills like changing a tire."
BBB is a not-for-profit organization that fixes donated bikes so that members can use an alternative form of transportation.
"We came across a program similar to this in Toronto, then brought the idea back to Buffalo and tailored it to the needs of our city," Booth said.
According to Booth, their partnership with UB was created through the UB Green Office. The only other college in the area that has BBB hubs on campus is Buffalo State, and there are also some scattered about downtown Buffalo.
There are a total of seven UB hubs, with locations at the Student Union, Ellicott Complex, the Main Circle on South Campus, and the Downtown Medical Center. Now, UB has the capacity to hold over 300 bikes on campus.
Also, to facilitate bicycle safety, helmets will now be available for purchase at Campus Tees in the Student Union.
Directors of the program hope that the new bike racks and rental service will encourage students to ride around campus rather than using their vehicles.
"It is a healthy alternative that will potentially decrease the number of people using vehicles," Austin said. "Hopefully people will see that biking can get you from point A to point B in an expeditious manner if we make the campus a more friendly place to walk and ride."
The program could possibly reduce traffic and parking congestion, while at the same time working towards UB's goal of becoming a greener campus.
"This will make it possible to move easier about campus, and give us a chance to do it in an environmentally friendly way," said Dennis Black, vice president of Student Affairs.
Black is optimistic about the program's future success.
"Like everything else, people will use it and it will grow," he said.
Several students registered their bikes and received an identification sticker during the kickoff, including Rob Uplinger, a senior mechanical-engineering major.
"I think (the program) aids in making it easy to get around campus, especially with bike racks on the buses now," he said. "Also, people who do own bikes need a nice, safe place to lock them up, and now UB is providing that."
Bojidar Kojouharov, a junior biomedical sciences major, also registered his bike.
Both Uplinger and Kojouharov think the new program will make it easier and safer to use their bicycles on campus.
According to Austin, the basis of the program is to create a bike community at UB.
"We're better off if we can share what we need instead of everyone having their own. I think that's the message here," Black said.
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
