The WolfWheels bike share program, the brainchild of the University cycling club and Student Government Sustainability Commission, will allow students to rent bicycles for regular use on campus beginning March 29.
According to Marycobb Randall, a sophomore in business management and the president of the University Student Centers, the program was initiated last spring, when the student center was considering its feasible projects.
“We have a facilities project that we do each year, so we were looking at projects that would provide the greatest benefit to our campus and impact students,” Randall said. “We came upon the WolfWheels project. It was a good fit, where money could be used this year.”
Jim Ceresnak, student body president, said the concept of the program had been developing for some time.
“It’s been in the works for several months; we’ve wanted a more sustainable and pedestrian-friendly campus,” Ceresnak said. “Every year, folks have a lot of issues with transportation, so this is another option that students can use. We’ve got a very spread-out campus — a large campus — so it goes into solving those problems.”
Ceresnak said the program was the result of wide collaboration among different groups on campus.
“We’ve been able to work with a lot of different groups on campus: the student center’s board of directors, University Transportation and the Inter-Residence Council,” Ceresnak said. “We’ve just put a lot of different pieces together to make it happen, and it’s been nice to see that kind of collaboration [towards] the success of it.”
According to Ceresnak, university campuses in North Carolina such as UNC-Wilmington and Duke, as well as other universities nationwide, have developed similar initiatives.
“UNC-Chapel Hill actually has a car share; it’s called ZipCar. So, it’s like the same idea but it’s with cars,” Randall said.
Owing to the large amount of planning required, the program took until last semester to get off the ground.
“Probably until October, [we] were still looking for someone to house the operation, have the infrastructure for it, the systems, all of that, so that was the holdup, but then once we figured out who was going to be responsible for that, it’s taken off,” Randall said. “We’ve made progress really, really quickly.”
Local vendors will supply the bicycles and necessary gear and Campus Recreation will oversee the program. Students will be able to rent a bicycle for $2 to $3 and Campus Recreation will be providing helmets and locks.
The cycling club and the student center are currently negotiating with bicycle vendors over the final cost of equipment, Randall said.
“We’re including all of that, [bicycle, helmet and lock], together, as well as maybe a maintenance plan for the bikes so upkeep can be included,” Randall said. “Also, [we’d like to have] a locked in price, so as we need to replace bikes, we can still get them at a low cost.”
Randall said the program will also benefit the bicycle vendors.
“The vendors are getting this exposure to this huge, 32,000-student [population], and they’re local, so it’s beneficial both for them and for us,” Randall said. Initially, the bike share will consist of 20 to 25 bicycles, but if the program proves successful, more will be added. For now, according to Randall, bicycles will only be available for daily and weekend rentals.
“Right now, we’re not going to do semester-long rentals just because we want as many students to be able to use the program as possible,” Randall said. “With the limited number of bikes, we don’t want them locked up for a whole semester.”
Although most students have been unaware of the concept of a bike share program on campus, they have reacted with enthusiasm when informed of the program.
Matthew Adams, a junior in computer science, said having the opportunity to rent a bicycle would save him the cost of purchasing one.
“I think it’s a great idea, I have been thinking on and off about getting a bike for quite some time, but didn’t really want to invest the money it would take to get a bike, because I’m not sure if I’d be able to sustain having a bike,” Adams said. “A rental program would definitely bridge that gap, so I could definitely make good use of it.”
Matthew Armstrong, a sophomore in civil engineering, said it would make him happy to see more people on bicycles.
“I think it’d be a good idea to have the program and get people riding bikes. I like riding bikes, so it’s always a pleasure to see other people riding bikes,” Armstrong said.
While the project is underway, Ceresnak said, the campus will have to work with the city of Raleigh to make the area around the campus more biker-friendly.
“If we can work with the city of Raleigh to make the area around campus more biker-friendly, if we can somehow make it easier through the infrastructure that we have, if students can actually use the bikes and they want to use them, then you have a successful program,” Ceresnak said. “That’s one of the things that we’re going to discuss and look at how we can make that happen.”
Ceresnak said the program would also help to fulfill a major campaign promise which he made during his election campaign.
“One of my top campaign promises was to use student brainpower, use student ideas to solve problems on campus. Through sustainability [programs] we’ve been able to do a lot of those things,” Ceresnak said.
Randall said the program would have several benefits.
“It’s economical; it’s going to be healthy for students because they’re going to be biking; and it’s good for the environment,” Randall said.
Ceresnak said the future prospects of the program looked bright.
“I think the bike share program’s going to be a great option for students. If you need to get from point A to point B and you can’t take a car, you can’t take a bus, for two or three dollars, you can get a bike and you can get there,” Ceresnak said. “Beyond being a last-minute resource like that, I think it’s going to be a good program. I’m excited to see it coming.”
