Of all the possessions I brought to college this fall, perhaps my favorite is my 1980s Schwinn road bike. I luckily happened upon it at a used bike sale this summer, and for only $60, it was mine. Since then, I have put hundreds of miles on it, spent $40 on a lock to protect it and ridden it to class almost every day. There are two main reasons I ride to class. The first is that zipping across campus through the cool fall air is a fun and relaxing way to get to my long and stressful labs and lectures. The second is that I get at least 10 extra minutes of priceless sleep each day I bike. By biking to class, I stand to gain well over 10 hours of sleep this semester alone. Factor in the additional 10 hours of walking I could save with my daily rides back to the South 40, and I can save 20 hours of my time simply by riding my bike to classes for only one semester!

This seems like an unbeatable deal, and early on in the semester, I often thought to myself: “Why do so many Wash. U. students, whom I assume know how to ride bicycles, waste their time walking to class every day?” After some consideration I realized that some students may enjoy walking as much as I enjoy biking, which is perfectly reasonable. But perhaps a bigger reason is the serious lack of bicycle parking available both on the Danforth campus and the South 40. This, I believe, is a problem that the University must address, particularly as it tries to become a more environmentally-friendly institution.

Bikes, for many of the reasons I previously listed, are extremely popular on campus—so popular that on nice days, I often lose most, if not all, of the 10 minutes my bike ride saves me simply looking for a place to lock my bike. Finding a spot near the library between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. is all but impossible. Often, I must park my bike far away and walk some distance to class. And the newly constructed DUC? It has only two short rows of bike racks to serve both the Subway and DUC lunch crowds. Beyond the problems I face on the Danforth campus, if I return to my dorm after 4 p.m., I am left with the unfortunate choice between leaving my bike exposed to the elements locked to a tree or railing or locking my bike on top of someone else’s bike, making it hard if not impossible for them to access their bike. To put it mildly, much of the joy of biking to class is lost in the hassle of parking my bike.

But for me, biking is both a luxury and a time-saver, but not a deal breaker. If I must, I can forgo biking and simply walk to class. For many upperclassmen, this is not the case. A bike may be their only mode of transportation between campus and their off-campus housing that is a mile or more away. More importantly, a bike may serve as a carbon-neutral alternative to driving to class. It is those students for whom ample bike racks are most important. If the University builds enough racks so that parking a bike is not a hassle, they might keep hundreds of cars off the road and also help alleviate the crowded parking situation on campus. In fact, bike racks are considered so important for environmental sustainability that a LEED credit is awarded to buildings that provide bike storage for 15 percent of their residents or five percent of their users (at peak traffic times). Unfortunately, on a college campus, that simply is not enough. The University must think beyond the publicity benefits of LEED certification and actually meet the needs of its students. I would also like to point out that building additional bike racks is considerably cheaper than constructing parking lots and that bikes are considerably cheaper than cars. When it comes time for me to move off campus, the bike rack situation will be a serious consideration, as I am sure it has been for many students. It will affect where I can live and whether I must buy a car (a major financial decision).

While it may seem that the lack of bike racks is only a minor annoyance that we can all live with, it actually can have far-reaching environmental, financial and lifestyle-changing consequences for many students. That is why I believe the University should seriously consider the simple but important step of improving on-campus bike storage as soon as possible.