The future of the bike share program is undetermined after the Government of the Student Body Senate voted not to fund this semester’s leg of the project at Sept. 3’s GSB meeting.

The GSB-initiated bike share program would provide around 300 bikes at docking stations around campus. Students could use their ISUCards to check out bikes and return them at other docking stations. The idea of a bike share program inspired an industrial design class that would be devoted to creating model bikes and docking stations as well as determining whether or not the university’s infrastructure could handle the program.

In spring 2014, the Senate had funded the class. Toward the end of the semester, the Senate voted to table a bill that would fund the fall semester of the class until fall GSB meetings. At Sept. 3’s meeting, the Senate voted not to approve the bill requesting an additional $7,477.39 to the almost $5,500 already spent funding the class.

“One of the biggest misconceptions was that for us to fund this research, it’s not funding a bunch of bike prototypes that are going to be on campus,” said Hillary Kletscher, GSB president. “It’s not saying we’re going to commit to a bike share program.”

Mark Kargol, the teaching assistant for the industrial design class, said that the 20 students in the class last semester created three designs for bikes and docking stations.

This semester’s goal centered on designing and manufacturing two bikes, each of a different design, which would be funded by GSB. Those bikes would be used as prototypes and weighed against each other as the best model to manufacture. The community and regional planning students would also devote the semester to analyzing the university’s infrastructure to determine whether or not the university could support 300 more bikes on campus.

The bike share program was the brainchild of Kletscher and former GSB president Spencer Hughes in fall 2012. Hughes had gotten the idea at a Big 12 student government conference.

“At the time, we definitely had an increased student population, but it wasn’t at the size that it is now,” Kletscher said about the project. “That’s why I think we had fewer reservations about it. At that point, we felt like the infrastructure could handle it.”

Kletscher, a student like many others who brought their bikes from home to campus, said the program appealed to both her and Hughes because it was a project that could benefit all students on campus, not just the organizations that requested funds that would only benefit their members.

“We have over $2 million every year,” Kletscher said about student fees. “From my perspective, spending $7,000 on something that could potentially benefit our entire campus, why wouldn’t we do that?”

Hughes and Kletscher began to research bike share companies and their programs and create a plan on how to implement a program at Iowa State. They presented their idea to the Graduate and Professional Student Senate where an industrial design student brought a new perspective to the project.

Bike share then became a program for the students to use for transportation and to use for hands-on learning experiences.

Kargol had wanted his design students to do a project for an international bike competition for the last spring semester.

“I felt like it would be something the students could do to contribute to campus,” Kargol said. “It was also an opportunity that really had never been done before by students. There are bike share programs on campuses across the country, but there’s no system that students designed in its entirety.”

About 20 industrial design students made up the class last semester. By this semester, the students from mechanical and electrical engineering had picked up the class along with five students from community and regional planning.

During Sept. 3’s Senate meeting, many senators voiced their concern that while the program may be a good idea, the reality was that students just would not use the bikes over other transportation, such as CyRide buses.

However, Kletscher said the CyRide system will have to change because of the increased population on campus, regardless of whether or not there is a bike share program.

“We’re going to talk about the longterm future of CyRide,” Kletscher said. “Currently, if you go out on campus, about 60 percent of our traffic on campus is buses. The infrastructure of how we handle buses on campus hasn’t changed in 15 years, but we’ve added like 10,000 students.”

Kletscher said that she and members of administration discussed the fact that there may be so many students walking across Morrill Road and Osborn Drive that CyRide could no longer travel through them. Then the buses would have to travel on the outer roads of campus, Kletscher said.

“At that point, everyone’s going to want a bicycle,” Kletscher said. “It’s going to be something that’s more desired. Having that other option of public transportation, to me, is important.”

Kletscher said the program can also encourage health and wellness, so students can easily check out a bike, run errands around town or bike with friends and return it.

As for whether or not the bikes would gather at one docking station, Nick Terhall, head of the GSB bike share committee, discussed the option of having an app that students could download. When bikes built up at one rack, they would get a notification to ferry bikes to a different docking station. The volunteers would be credited 10 or 20 cents to their CyCash via their ISUCards at the docking station for each bike.

Another major concern and reason senators voted not to fund the bike share program this semester was because they were unsure whether or not the university’s infrastructure could handle the buses, increased students and bikes already on campus without adding 300 more bikes and bike racks.

Many senators wanted a feasibility study done before they decided to fund the project, asking the committee and the class members to create a new proposal for the spring semester.

Both Kargol and Kletscher stressed that since the program is being implemented and designed by students already in the class, CRP students could handle a feasibility study instead of bringing in a separate company and paying up to $30,000 for a study.

“I instructed them anything goes, not to sit and think that because it’s been that way for the last 40 years that it has to stay that way,” Kargol said. “Then they look for solutions that could be either added to the system or rerouting things or changing usage of roads or pathways, adding pathways.”

Kletscher said that there would be discussion about adding bike lanes down main roads.

When senators brought up the topic of bike safety, Kletscher said adding those bike lanes and paths across campus would cut down on bikes on sidewalks. Since it is illegal for bikes to be on sidewalks on campus — a little known fact — bicyclists would travel the paths and not have to weave through students, risking running into a student on foot.

Not only would the program benefit those getting hands-on learning experience and those using the program, Kletscher said other universities are taking notice of the program.

“In terms of our university, it’s putting Iowa State on the map for the College of Design, adding more value to our degrees,” Kletscher said. “We’ve had a lot of other universities contact us and say, ‘You’re designing your own bike share program? Can we buy that from you?’”

Kargol said that the class came to GSB for funding because it was a GSB initiative. However, he said it is now looking at other funding from private donors, the university and grants. Plans will carry on, Kargol said.

“The campus is very crowded, and it’s causing a lot of issues. From what I’ve seen, there have been no suggestions put out there for fixing the problem,” Kargol said. “I feel like bike share is a program that students can bring to the university that will help mitigate some of the crowding. 

“I don’t want to say that students should have to answer the question, but why not?”