Possible bike share at Hopkins

While Hopkins may be considered a small campus by many students, sometimes it’s a drag to travel from Bloomberg to Olin (those unfortunate souls in discrete math may know the pain). If only getting around campus could be easier! Bikes are an obvious solution to the excruciating walks. However, currently, the university does not offer a bike rental program. For the majority of us who don’t have a bike—or don’t want to pay for one—there is a shining beacon of hope on the horizon. A group of students on Homewood have decided to create an organization called Jay Bikes.

Some of you may have heard of Jay Bikes from the daily announcements, but there are some details that you probably missed. Sophomore Amy Sun, an advocate for the bike share program, has revealed some of the background behind the program. The organization started after a bunch of Hopkins travelers returned from Washington D.C. In the capital, there exists a network of Capital Bikeshare stations. The network functions through time stamps: whenever a user checks out a bike, a timer starts on his account. The first 30 minutes are free and any additional time are charged to his account. The relative ease with which one can obtain cheap access to bicycles prompted the SGA to propose Jay Bikes, a program that is modeled after Capital Bikeshare.

The establishment of a bike-share program in Hopkins will provide bikes to Hopkins faculty and students at a low cost. Through this, the organization hopes to promote physical fitness and an environmentally-friendly alternative to driving. “It would be great to see students running errands…and traveling wherever they fancy on two wheels!” Amy wrote in an email to the News-Letter. The majority of Hopkins students agree with the noble goals of Jay Bikes. Out of 390 students who have responded in the survey, 82% are in favor of the program.

However, one of the major concerns of the student body is the question of safety. Some believe that the environment surrounding Hopkins (for example, the poorly paved roads) is unsuitable for biking. In response, Amy wrote that “I think that the bike share system can succeed, especially with the safer routes/streets provided by the Charles Street Reconstruction Project, which will be completed this summer.”

As the program is at its infancy, the immediate goal of these students is to establish a station outside of the Outdoor Pursuits office at the Rec Center. As the program increases in popularity, they hope to increase the number of stations to cover dorms and the Mattin Center. For those of you who are curious about the system, a pilot run will start in Fall 2016. The initial run will consist of at least three bikes available from 4-7 pm on Friday and, if successful, will be extended to Monday through Friday.