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Bike initiative strives to increase alternative commuting |
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Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
 The Boone Bicycle Initiative, located below the Turchin Center of the Arts, was given a $10,000 grant to fund its community bike rental program. Photo by Anna Donlan
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by MEGAN NAYLOR
Intern News Reporter
Parking scarcity and traffic problems are anything but new to Appalachian State University and the Boone community.
To combat this, the Boone Bike Initiative (BBI), a community-based organization devoted to increasing bike commuting in and around the Boone area, hopes to soon make such problems a thing of the past.
They continue this effort with the addition of a new fleet of bikes available for rental.
Eleven new Kona Smoke bikes are available, as well as refurbished bikes that range from mountain to road oriented.
The new Kona bikes will be loaned out for short-term use, typically two weeks, on a credit card deposit system.
“We just want to see them every two weeks to make sure that they are
being kept up and used, because those are the bikes that we really want
our dedicated commuters on,” Alan C. Watts, co-founder of BBI and
senior industrial technology major, said.
The refurbished bikes on the other hand will be available for long term
rental anywhere from a week to two months, and will be on a $50 cash
deposit system.
“All of the refurbished bikes were donated either through members of
the community or through the Boone Police Department,” Watts said.
Bikes are available on loan with the only requirements being that each
rider fill out a short application and pay a small refundable fee to
ensure the bikes are ridden and taken care of properly.
All of the BBI bikes available for loan are outfitted with an odometer
(a meter that shows miles traversed), so the organization can tally how
many miles are ridden and the omission offset.
In the near future it hopes to make this research available to the
community on its Web site, so people can see the change the bike loan
program is making for the environment as well as for parking.
Plans for the program started a few years ago but have come together
into what is now the Boone Bike Initiative in the last several months
after receiving funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, by
means of a $10,000 EPA P3 grant.
“EPA P3, which is people, prosperity, and planet, is basically a
student sustainability competition, with university groups from all
over the country,” said Watts.
There are two phases to the competition.
BBI won the first phase this past fall and was awarded with a $10,000 grant.
Phase two will be held this spring in Washington, D.C., for everyone
who won a grant in the fall and gives them the opportunity to receive a
$75,000 grant, Watts said.
The EPA has awarded a total of 64 P3 grants to student teams, on behalf
of 56 universities, from 29 different states, according to the EPA Web
site.
The P3 challenge categories can range anywhere from agriculture to information resources, according to the EPA Web site.
Boone Bicycle Initiative’s category falls under the built environment,
meaning it is involved in “creating environmental benefits through
innovative transportation and mobility strategies, and smart growth as
it results in reduced vehicle miles traveled,” according to the EPA Web
site.
BBI is the third Appalachian State project to win the phase one grant.
The previous P3 project winners included the Appalachian State
University Collaborative Bio-diesel Project, which won three years ago,
and the Affordable Bio-shelters Project, which looked at inexpensive
high efficiency greenhouse technology, Watts said.
BBI’s headquarters are located off King Street, right below the Turchin Center for Visual Arts.
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