By Andrea Clarke
Elm Staff Writer
This Monday, March 26, marks the beginning of a new bike share program at Washington College.
Sophomore and current Secretary of the Environment Jeffery Sullivan has played an instrumental role in making what was just an idea in the beginning of the school year a reality.
“The idea was originated by [junior] Jenny Lee, the secretary last semester who I took over for when she left to study abroad [in Australia]. [She] and I have been collaborating on this since the very beginning of the year, and it is based off programs seen at a majority of other institutions,” said Sullivan.
This particular green initiative has grown across the country in the past few decades and has been embraced by an impressive number of campuses, including NYU, Harvard, Amherst, and Tufts. Mela Dutka, vice president of student affairs and dean of students, said, “We’re happy to support SGA’s bike share program and to have participated in its development at strategic points…Jenny and Jeff led that effort well, and the program remains close to their original vision.”
“In the original discussions [we] imagined students using the bikes when going downtown on nice days, or when they needed to pick something up from the grocery store,” said Sullivan. “As we worked through the process we talked to a company which would set the entire program up for us, but they simply didn’t feel right for the College so we decided to do the leg work ourselves.”
Two of the biggest problems SGA encountered were figuring out the program’s expenses and creating a share system that best suited WC.
“There have been many meetings with several people on campus to arrange everything from liability forms to user registration,” said Sullivan. “The program will be run out of the Public Safety office, which is right around the corner from the bike racks.”
These racks will be installed outside Somerset, facing the dining hall, and will be monitored by cameras. The spot will be used only for the 10 bikes approved for the program, which are standard cruisers from Chester River Outfitters.
“The rest of this semester is simply a trial run—we want to gauge interest, evaluate the set-up, and use this experience as a pilot program to see in which ways we can improve for next year,” said Sullivan.
April 1 is the program’s tentative launch date, “pending final approval and the timely arrival of the bikes on campus.”
In order to use the bikes, students must first be registered, which they can do staring Monday, March 26. Students may sign up at either the bike share table (which will be stationed under the dining hall stairs), the SGA office, or through Jeffery Sullivan at jsullivan3@washcoll.edu. Each interested student must pay a one-time fee of $5 which will allow him or her to use the bikes as often as he or she likes until the end of the semester. The rental fee for next fall, however, will be $15.
After registration, students can go to Public Safety where they must sign in before they can unlock a bike. There they will receive a bike key and bike lock, which Director of Public Safety Jerry Roderick encourages them to use.
“We’re certainly going to work with educating the students about keeping them properly secured,” said Roderick.
There will be an on-campus mechanic for all the standard tune-ups that come from general wear, such as flat tires. If a bike is damaged due to misconduct, however, the responsible student will be fined according to the repair costs.
Roderick thinks the program is a “great idea [and] just in time for the good weather.” He, too, enjoys biking every so often, particularly in the summer at Bethany Beach because “it’s cheaper to ride a bike down there than to park a car.”
The bike share program caters to this kind of thinking and saving money on gas is just one of the many benefits it promises the student body. Sullivan hopes that this trial run will show how using bikes “reduce[s] short distance driving, which not only is harmful to vehicles and reduces fuel efficiency, but also creates easily avoidable pollution.”
Not only will this sharing be good for the environment, it is also excellent for Chestertown.
“This is certainly an ideal community for bike usage,” said Roderick, “it allows you to run up to the supermarket and improves convenience for getting around town. Just the everyday routine use is a plus.”
He also anticipates an even greater appreciation for the program once the college’s new waterfront property is developed.
Junior Leland Fiegel, a chronic bike borrower amongst his friends, is “very excited” about the 24 hour maximum rental time and “plans on utilizing [the bikes] regularly. As someone who doesn’t own a bike on campus, but really enjoys the convenience and speed of commuting through campus on two wheels, this program should prove to be very useful to me.”