Posted on 08/29/2013 4:57:27 PM PDT by dennisw
The University of Dayton is giving 100 students free bicycles in exchange for their promise not to bring cars to the southwest Ohio campus for two years.
The Dayton Daily News reports the giveaway is part of the university's efforts to shrink its carbon footprint and form a bike friendly campus. It also builds on a bike-sharing program created at the school two years ago.
Almost 300 first-year students have promised to ditch their four-wheeled vehicles for two years. A hundred of them will get bikes Friday at the grand opening of the school's new Outdoor Engagement Center. The bikes retail for more than $600.
The recipients include Cody Rice, who says not having a car forces him to spend more time on campus and make the most of it.
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(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
When you’re young and healthy, a bike is easy to go about any where you want within a few miles. Although I had a car, I can remember riding several miles down the Davis Hwy. to K-Mart where I bought a revolver.
I then rode back to my residence with my gun. It was a breeze. One thing I just realized is I never even gave it a thought that my bike might be stolen. The fact that it was around 20 years old may have been part of it.
“The University of Dayton is giving 100 students free bicycles”
Ain’t nothin’ in this life free. Especially not bikes that retail a $600 a pop (according the story). OTOH, it is a private university, so it’s probably the students (through their campus fees), and not the taxpayers at large, paying for this.
As for the idea behind it... eh/meh. Lots of students ride bikes on college campuses. My school forbid freshmen from getting parking passes because there just weren’t enough parking spots. So, in terms of easing parking congestion, this idea may help a bit. As far as reducing a carbon footprint or whatnot, it’s the same old nonsense.
Sadly most of the teens I see today aspire to 5 or 6 years of college on credit and graduating to the “Life of Julia”
Dayton was once an automotive manufacturing town.
Not only that, but it was the home of some of the most prolific inventors of the 1900’s.
The liberal professors and the adolescent students, if they had any brains at all, would be trying to bring those days back to Dayton.
When your standard of living goes from a Caddy or Corvette to a bike, you have said it all.
Your outfit, right?
I predict a lot of frozen asses in a coupla months
perhaps, but UD is a Catholic private school, so the taxpayer connection is perhaps less than state schools
The free bike program worked real good in Portland, Oregon. It got the victims out of the protection of their cars into the clutches of the street gangs. Many a bruise and broken bone resulted from it.
agreed.
$600 is cheap compared to buying land and paving parking lots for students to bring cars on campus. The University of Dayton is in the middle of an urban area and they can probably afford to give away bikes for several years before the cost matches that of providing “free” parking.
At ucf, a car would be a liability. There are hundreds of bikes all over. What is the f’in problem with you people and bikes geez.
C’mon. Bikes are not evil. I love bikes.
I predict the one probably leading to reports of the other, that way students get a free bike and drive their a car to class.
Ohio Ping
“so it’s probably the students (through their campus fees), and not the taxpayers at large, paying for this.”
UD is extremely expensive. $38,500 a year just for tuition and $1,150 a credit hour. I think they might be able to scrape $600 out of the budget for a “free” bike to promote a liberal warm fuzzy feeling. It also probably costs 5 times that amount to build and maintain a parking spot.
In “Breaking Away” the pretty girl on campus (Robyn Douglass” drove either a Vespa or a Cushman little motor scooter. It appeared about ideal for the job of getting to your next class.
Take the bike, park across the street for a week until everyone stops caring.
Yep. Sigh.
Uh, those bikes are gonna be useless on rain & snow days.
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