Lending a Bike Around Town

Dose

Friday, April 21, 2006

University of Alberta students have Meagan Johnston to thank for the free bike-lending service now on campus.

Through her role as the associate director of the Environmental Co-ordination Office of Students (ECOS) last year, Johnston, 20, helped to make the organization’s dream program a reality, turning the ideas of previous ECOS directors into a concrete system of free bike loans to students.

“I think that there’s a lot of environmentalism that is really out of reach for people, like installing solar panels. People can’t really afford that all the time,” says Johnston. “So, to me, giving people a bike is perfect.”

The service works in much the same way as a library does. Users borrow a bike for a month and pay a $20 deposit, which they will get back if the bike is returned in good working order. If the bike is overdue, a $5 a week fine is taken from the deposit.

The bike library program proved to be extremely popular in its first year. When it launched in April 2005, the system started with around a dozen bikes, and now has 30. The program has expanded this year to help fulfill the overwhelming demand from students looking for a way to get around campus.

“Last year, it was overwhelming,” says Johnston. “In a way, we were almost victims of our own success. Probably within about a week of launching the program, we would have had enough people on the waiting list to fill the whole summer.”