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Students have signaled interest in starting a bike-share program on campus.
According to the results of a recent bike-share survey conducted by ASUNM’s Green Fund Committee earlier this semester, 81.7 percent of respondents said they would like to see such a program on campus. 18.3 percent said they wouldn’t.
A total of 651 students responded to the survey.
But Earl Shank, sustainability coordinator of the Office of Sustainability, and who leads the committee, said that despite the student interest expressed in the survey, the committee is not concretely pushing for the program. He said the committee intends to study the feasibility of the program first.
The program would be part of the Green Fund, a budget proposed last spring by the committee to fund sustainability initiatives on campus, Shank said.
“The bike share is something that could fall under the Green Fund,” he said. “However, the decision about the Green Fund — what to fund and how to fund it — would be the decision of the committee. Until we get into the point of having our funds together, which we are getting more and more toward, I really can’t speak on whether it’s something that students would be interested in.”
According to the survey, 36.8 percent of respondents said they had seen a bike-share program in other communities or universities, while 63.2 percent said they hadn’t.
A total of 67.8 percent of respondents said they were willing to pay at least an additional $3 in student fees for the program, while 32.2 percent stated that they were not willing to pay anything.
Shank said the idea of a bike-share program was introduced during the administration of former ASUNM President Jamie Roybal, two years ago before he joined ASUNM. He said that although the student government was able to gather “substantial” funds for the program, it ended up being scrubbed.
“At the time, bike shares weren’t popular that we failed to find a vendor that’s willing to work with us,” he said. “I don’t if that’s the case, whether the demand on a bike share has increased … At the time, we had the money in place, but we cannot find anyone who had the time to put together a bike-share program.”
He said the budget for a potential bike-share program would depend on the student fee funding the committee would receive to be put toward the Green Fund. The committee plans to file an appropriation request with the Student Fee Review Board, a body that recommends how to allocate student fees every spring semester, by the end of the month.
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Cynthia Sanchez, a UNM freshman studying Spanish, said she supports the idea of a campus bike-share program. She said the program would provide more convenient transportation to students.
“I know a lot of my friends walk to class, and it’s difficult for them to manage their time around how long it takes to get to their class from their dorms,” she said. “They could be using their time better for, like, preparing for their class or eating. I think it’s a good idea.”
Sanchez said the program would also be environmentally friendly because it would reduce the number of students who live near the campus and drive to school. She said she is willing to pay extra student fees for the program.
But linguistics and sign language junior Thomas Delgado said he has a limit on how much he is willing to pay for the program.
“If it’s affordable enough, I would do it,” he said. “I would be willing to pay at most, maybe three or five dollars.”
Delgado said that the program would be a different approach to sustainability on campus.
“It will definitely be a unique system to offer to UNM students,” he said. “It will definitely help a lot to get to classes on time.”
Shank said that at the moment, the committee in the process of gathering more student input on the potential program. He said that because the program might entail additional infrastructure in the University, such as bike lanes, the program might still require further research that would take time.
So although the committee expects the Green Fund to be in place by next school year, the bike-share program might not be approved along with it, Shank said.
But he said that he would like to see the program in place.
“In my opinion, an idealistic bike-share program could very much benefit the University,” he said. “A bike share is great, but we have to have the infrastructure to support it … I’m definitely interested in a bike share, but I don’t know if we’re ready.”
