Green bikes coming back?

[Sal Atticum]

Looks like SDSU is thinking about the same thing (from just a week ago):  http://stateandlocal.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/bike-sharing-possibilities/
If it's not clear, State and Local is a division of the SDSU Student Association (= Student Government).

This has been postponed until next semester: http://media.www.sdsucollegian.com/media/storage/paper484/news/2009/09/30/News/BikeSharing.Program.Tabled-3788478.shtml

I'm still not clear on the logistics of the SDSU project.

[Sal Atticum]

Danielle Reflsand from SWAC has this to say via email.  If anyone would like to go to the last SWAC meeting of the semester and give them your input, please email her to let her know: [email protected]

It is a goal of SWAC to get Green Bikes running again.... however, I'm on the Sustainability Council (a Task Force under President Kelley) and it's part of the Climate Action Plan to renew Green Bikes. I say this because SWAC doesn't want to "compete" with President Kelley. We are waiting to see if there will be more resources (i.e. money) in order to have better and more bikes. I talked to some members of the cycling team who passed along great ideas. I told SWAC about the conversation... but it would be great for them to hear it from a member of the cycling team directly!
If you are interested, we have our last SWAC meeting this Thursday at 5:30 and it would be great if you could join us.

Thanks, again.

Danielle

[Plantains]

UPD never even wanted to collect the bikes, but since people in our society are so disposable oriented they needed to. It turned into a nightmare for them since they had a bunch of bicycles that people (other than their owners) actually wanted and UPD had little to no authority to give them to anyone.

In short, when we went to get bikes for the green bike project, we took probably anything that was realistically worthwhile. Of course I'm sure beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there were certainly plenty of worthwhile parts there on bikes that had other issues. Still though, not too much was missed. I don't recall leaving anything there that "should've been saved for the good of cycling" or anything of that nature, so don't feel too bad that the bikes were recycled. If there were a busted bike that had some significant historical value like a paramount or something... we would've poached it.

That all said, I think any resurrection of the Green Bike Project is a complete waste of time on this campus. The only people that I think would realistically use it already have such disposable bicycles that its essentially a "green bike project for the underground" of sorts.

Also... I'm not calling anyone a liar, but I had no knowledge that they crushed bikes. Although that seems highly realistic since 1. They seemed to be begging us to take them, and 2. Green Bike was an astonishingly poorly organized/setup program and thus UPD likely saw no recourse to get rid of the bicycles on their own.

[Plantains]

I also wonder who she talked to and if it was recently since AFAIK Chad and I were the only two people they spoke with and I told them (in short) that they had possibly one of the most disorganized concepts of these I knew of.

[Sal Atticum]

I don't know if these were the same lot of bicycles you went through to get green bicycles before.  They may have been more recent acquisitions of UPD?

She may have been the one we ran into outside the Union back in August, but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

[chilean_luv]

It would've been nice to know about the pile of bikes for some parts salvaging purposes.
Maybe we should let them know to contact us before they do that again.
and hopefully my bike wasn't on that pile

On another note,
I've discussed this with sal some, but what do you guys think about the possibility of combining green bikes with a bike coop
This could be for on campus or through out the town.
The basic idea would be to have a volunteer coop, but get free work space and maybe some other percs from the city
or UND in return for the up keep of the green bike fleet.

Just a thought that won't leave me alone.

[Plantains]

I think a bike coop would put companies out of business in this town. If I were UPD I probably wouldn't have notified the public except to potentially auction them off, and the last bicycle auction I went to in Buffalo was basically 4 hours of BS.

Also, I'm sure they had acquired new bicycles, but they only clip bikes from on campus, those of us that have been around for summers know that there are very few bikes that get left lying around so while I'm sure they acquired more bicycles, I doubt it was very many. But I'm fairly certain it would've included all of the bikes we sifted through. I know for certain that they 1. Didn't want to clip bikes, 2. Didn't want them lying around, and 3. Had basically only decided to clip them if they became a nuissence. (due to lack of storage space)

[Chopped Liver]

This is the guy I talked to on the phone who was responsible for the disposal:

Email Address:     [email protected]
Title:    Assoc Dir Facilities         Organization/Dept:    Facilities Total
Campus Location:    Facilities Management Room 122
Campus Address:    3791 Campus Road Stop 9032 AD
Office Phone:    701/777-3005         Dept Phone:    701/777-2591


NOTE:  This is not UPD.  UPD has nothing to do with these bikes.


This is where they went:

RMI - 701/746-9381



Anyone else have any experience with the Grand Forks PD auctions?  I did attend the auction a couple years ago and it was such a slow moving pain in the butt I left.  I was in that storage building a few weeks ago to see if one of my stolen bikes was in there and they already had, just guessing, a couple hundred bikes that they've taken in just since May or June.

I know the city wants the money, but how good of publicity would it be for a city council person who would be able to convince the city to donate those bikes to an organized, non-profit coop that would tune up and distribute them (paint green or sell to people in need by "suggested donation" to cover operating expenses) in a fashion agreed upon by all parties involved if we could convince a city council person to give it a shot?

Based on the time I've spent at the FM bike workshop, I don't think it's taking a huge chunk out of the pockets of the bike shops.  As far as I can tell the people are there because they can't afford a new bike or to pay $60/hr for someone to fix their magna or huffy.  All the bikes and parts they have are sold by "suggested donation" or you can earn something like $15 an hour credit for volunteering there whether you know anything about fixing bikes or not.

Speaking of needing parts, anyone have a pair of snow tires they want to get rid of?  Size doesn't matter.