Happy Monday after a long weekend, Deac families. Hope it was fun and relaxing and that you had your fill of friends and good food. We’re back to work and had a great question from a parent come in late last week.
A Deac parent had contacted one of our administrative offices and mentioned the University of Richmond’s bicycle program. Evidently they have a system of bikes all around campus that students can use free of charge. For example, Student #1 could borrow a bike, ride it to the library, and park it there. If Student #2 comes out of the library and needs a ride somewhere else, she can take that same bike and park it in another bike location. Our Deac parent said that at U of R, they have enough bikes and that rarely does a student not have a bike to get from one spot to another. He thought it would be nice if Wake Forest would consider a program like this.
We passed this suggestion on to our Parking Office and the Office of Sustainability. Our Director of Sustainability, Deedee DeLongpre Johnston, said that this is a frequently suggested program (and thanked the parent for passing it on to us). She told me that we have done four demand surveys over time and, though everyone loves the idea of having bikes to borrow, very few people actually think they would use it. So at this point, while everyone agrees it is a good idea, if we do not have sufficient demand to use the service, it is hard to justify that investment (when we have a lot of other competing priorities that want funding).
So to our Deac parent who passed this on – thank you! Your suggestion is a good one, but unfortunately the campus climate is not such that the students want to have this as a resource at this time. Hopefully there might be a time in the future when the student body wants to look more seriously at that option.
