Students bike across campus with Ride, Rack, Relax
Candace Buckman / Features Editor
Running late for class? Elon is now offering students a
quick and easy way to get to their classes.
This past Friday, the Student Government Association and the
Office of Student Life brought the Ride, Rack, Relax program
back to campus.
The program, which allows students to use school-owned bikes
to move about university property, was first implemented in
the spring of 2003.
However, due to vandalized and stolen bicycles, the
program’s committee decided to suspend the program for
a semester to find solutions for improvement.
This semester, the program has returned to campus and now
allows students to bring the bikes to any location on campus.
“Last year the program was designed for Moseley to
Danieley,” said faculty adviser Jana Lynn Patterson.
“This year it has been expanded to include all parts of
campus property.”
Additional bicycles have been purchased and refurbished to
allow more students to utilize the program. Twenty-seven blue
and red bicycles are now available to students and can be
found on designated Ride, Rack, Relax racks.
The program also includes new security measures that attempt
to prevent students from damaging or stealing the bikes. The
committee is working with campus officials to enforce
stricter punishment for offenders.
“Students were disappointed that so many bikes were
lost, stolen or severely damaged last year,” Patterson
said. “So they worked this year to set up some
guidelines and registration processes to help us better
monitor the bikes.”
Anyone who vandalizes or steals a bicycle may face a $200
fine and will be put through Elon’s judicial system.
A bike manager will make weekly assessments, look for
damages and keep inventory of the bicycles.
“We hope that students will treat these bikes with
respect and will use them in the spirit of the community for
which they were designed,” Patterson said.
In addition to providing students with a convenient
transportation alternative, Ride, Rack, Relax also functions
as a means to improve student health and the environment.
“We hope this program will reduce on the amount of
driving for ‘short stops’ across campus,”
Patterson said. “Community bike programs are good for
our community, our student’s health and the
environment.”
The SGA and Student Life Office intend to keep the program
running indefinitely. In the future, Patterson said she hopes
to add to the number of bicycles already available for
student use.
“We plan to keep the bikes out all semester and
evaluate the effectiveness of the program this summer,”
Patterson said. “Students seemed excited about the
program last year and we hope they will continue to be
excited.”
| 
