We at the Government of the Student Body take every proposal given to us by students very seriously. It is not merely our job but our duty to debate and balance the requests, opinions and concerns of our constituents. We betray the interests of our constituents when we allow ourselves to be swayed by public opinion and normative statements of support.

There are reasons why we vote the way we do on certain issues. It is not merely based out of our own concerns or preconceived notions of the role of GSB. We vote in a manner consistent with our constituents’ concerns and wishes, while simultaneously using our prudent judgement and deliberation.

In January, GSB chose to invest in funding prototypes for the bike share program. On Sept. 3, GSB voted against investing any further in the bike share program at this point.

When evaluating the program in terms of infrastructure requirements, it became apparent that funding the bike share at this point would exacerbate the congestion on campus. Student safety has been and will always remain a primary concern for GSB, and when CyRide has shown a significant increase in near-miss incidents, concerns about safety cannot be overlooked.

Furthermore, one must look at the tools GSB was provided with for evaluating student support for the program.

While some may lead you to believe that the bike share program was widely supported by the student body, this simply was not the case. When looking to an internal survey of bike share support by students, only 32 percent of students responded with a firm “yes,” that they would use such a program. When asked how much they’d be willing to spend per semester on a bike share program, 36 percent said they wouldn’t participate at all. Given the statistics we were afforded, how could one make the assertion that there was a broad consensus of support for the program? The answer is that we couldn’t.

The final issue of contention for this program was the sources of the funding. GSB funds are contributed by students via their student activity fees. The issue with that is that we would essentially be subsidising the tuition costs for those students involved in the creation of the program.

We find it disconcerting that the Iowa State Daily chose to publish three articles regarding bike share and failed to reach a single senator for comment. The debate on the bill lasted more than two hours, and despite assertions to the contrary, the program was extensively and comprehensively considered by the Senate.

We encourage all efforts to better our campus and wish to continue the conversation for all efforts regarding to do so. GSB may be skeptical of the future of the bike share program, but students are highly encouraged to reach out to their representatives and continue the conversation.

Signed,

Sens. Richard Hartnett, Khayree Fitten, Ben Crawford, Raghul Ethiraj, Hamad Abbas, Michael Snook, Peter Myers