Peddling Across Campus

By: Katie Wildgrube
Posted In: News

NEWPORT, R.I.- They seem to be everywhere. They are parked outside every building. Every time you turn a corner one goes racing past you.

Bicycles seem to be even more popular this year as both faculty and students at Salve Regina University are increasingly taking advantage of this alternate form of transportation.

“We’ve tried to encourage the use of bicycles on campus,” Father Thomas O’Neill, the University Chaplain, said.

Bicycles make the bonds of community better Father O’Neill said. They allow people to slow down, notice more things, and say hello to one another. When traveling in a vehicle one has a tougher time being present to people walking.

Not only does Father O’Neill ride his bike around campus, he rides it to and from work whenever possible. According to Father O’Neill bikes are beneficial because they do not take up a lot of space on the sidewalk or the road. They conserve fuel and are cleaner for the atmosphere.

Especially with the growing population of bicyclists on campus, more indoor storage would be useful, Father O’Neill suggested. There are currently only two indoor storage facilities on campus. One is at New Residence and the other is at Hunt and Reefe Halls.

Paul Cardoza, coordinator of Student Health Education, teamed up with Sister Therese Antone, President of Salve Regina University, and John Mixter, director of security, to create a new “Bicycle Loan Program” on campus.

The program consists of reconditioning bikes that have been abandoned on campus for over one year and then loaning them to interested students each semester. Along with the bike, students are given a cable and a lock. If the bicycle breaks, students may return them to be repaired.

“The bicycle loan program is a way of promoting healthy behaviors and healthy choices among our students,” Cardoza said. So far there are four loaned bicycles in use and one more is available. Twenty-five more are in repair.

The program is sponsored by Student Life and Student Health Education. It is funded in part by an NCAA CHOICES Grant. The overall goal is purchase new bikes when finances allow and paint the bikes green and blue, Salve’s colors, so they are easily recognized, Cardoza said.

“Having a bike on campus is basically just awesome,” Lexi Sassi, a sophomore at Salve Regina University said, “I love it.”

Sassi said she decided to bring her bike to school this year when having a car on campus got to be too expensive. Having a bike is beneficial because it is quicker than walking, you get exercise, and you don’t have to pay for gas, according to Sassi.

Sassi said the only problem she’s had was when her bike was stolen earlier this year. She had locked it up at Miley Hall using a friend’s lock which she must not have locked correctly. When she returned two days later the bike was gone. Sassi said she contacted Security and a few days later they found her bike and it was returned to her.

“I think I’ve grown an emotional attachment to my bike,” Sassi said, “It’s my only way of getting anywhere.” Sassi said she was devastated when it was stolen.

Anybody with a bike on campus can register it with Salve Regina Safety and Security so that in the event it is missing or stolen, Security can help locate the bike. Sassi said her bike was not registered with Security because she did not know that was possible. Now her bike is registered in case of future problems, according to Sassi.

Bicycleuniverse.info provides statistics on the energy efficiency of bicycles. Bicycling is more efficient than walking by 117 percent. One hundred bicycles could be produced using the same amount of energy and resources that are put into building one medium-sized car. Also, “using a bicycle to commute four days a week for four miles saves 54 gallons of gas annually,” according the website.

According to bicyclinginfo.org, Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, 43,000 bicyclist injuries were recorded in 2007. That is a 26 percent decrease from the 58,000 injuries in 1997. In that same decade, there was a 14 percent reduction in the number of bicyclist deaths. The numbers show that bicycling seems to be getting safer.

The website offers suggestions on how to make bicycling safer. One suggestion is that bicyclists need to be more educated about the rules of the road as bicyclists are expected to follow the same traffic laws as automobiles. Also, the website says that not only should bicyclists know the rules, authorities should enforce the rules.

Here in Newport police have been known to enforce such rules and ticket bicyclists for failing to follow traffic laws, which is important for student bicyclists to remember when riding bikes on and off campus.