As gas prices continue to climb and drain many students and staff of their budget, a common trend has emerged on the campus of Aquinas. Bicycles, the two-wheeled human powered vehicles that have been around since the 1800’s, are rising in usage by both the students and faculty on campus. But with such a vast increase in the number of bikes being used, the problem arises of where to store them between classes.

Junior Rebecca Kirk is among those bike riders who share a lack of proper space for bike storage. “People are locking their bikes to trees, posts, and many other objects that work for the time being but something needs to be done”, Kirk said in regard to the lack of bike racks for riders to use, forcing many to use alternative places to keep their transportation. “When winter comes people will want to store their bikes insides”, she added, “because, yes, I know many people who will still be riding their bikes come December”.

Randy MacGeorge, the director of Residence life at Aquinas, had expected an increase in bicycles for the fall, though not quite as many as it turned out. “Students are finding that Grand Rapids is a very bike friendly community, and are taking advantage of this”, he said, believing that this was one of the reason that the bike count is up and continuing to grow at Aquinas, “along with the increases in gas prices”.

To help reduce the percentage of riders without a proper place to store bikes, more bike racks were ordered for the school back in the summertime, and even more are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. In addition to having more storage space for bikers, the new racks are different shapes that will hopefully be much easier to use for riders. The new “inverted U” racks in front of the Moose Café are an example of the new styles of bike racks that are planned to offer up better bike space, as well as the new sheltered storage in front of Aquinas’ new apartment building.

With the increase in bicycle popularity, the Center for Sustainability on Campus is in the middle of plans to offer students without their own bikes the opportunity to join the trend. In April 2008, a proposal by Brad Vandenbroeck was passed through the student senate that would allow students to rent out bikes by signing them out through the school. Jessica Onan, the Program Director for the Center for Sustainability, said that, “the program is unavailable at the moment while the Student Sustainability Committee tries to gather bikes to use for rental, as well as trying to agree on a policy that will allow for fair usage of rental bicycles”. The program is to be implemented by Colin Knue, a sustainable business major and the Director of Sustainability for Student Senate, and, “should be easy to operate”, according to Onan.

Many staff members are pleased about the number of bikes being used on campus, and hope to see better attention being given to the care of bike storage on campus. Randy MacGeorge, who is also an avid bike rider, is glad to, “see more students using bikes as a form of transportation”. As the number of riders on campus continues to grow, it’s very likely that students will see better storage space for bikes, and hopeful that there won’t be clumps of cramped bicycles around Aquinas anymore.