KU celebrating National Bike Month

LAWRENCE — The month of May is recognized as National Bike Month, and since its inception in 2012, the KU Bicycle Advisory Committee has taken the opportunity to showcase campus bike resources and highlight campus and citywide efforts to improve bike safety, infrastructure and accessibility.

Throughout the year the KU Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC), which is made up of stakeholders from the campus and Lawrence communities, works to help inform and encourage biking on campus. One of the ways they do this is to enlist KU classes to help gather data and propose solutions to bike issues to help inform BAC initiatives.

This spring, a number of courses and departments assisted with these efforts:

• In the Department of Health, Sport, and Exercise Sciences, students enrolled in HSES 465: Program Assessment & Evaluation set about gathering information about bike awareness and safety.
• From the Department of Architecture, students taking ARCH 381: Design Workshop IV: Design for a Sustainable Future developed and proposed a number of designs for covered bike parking at select locations across campus.
• And within the Department of Urban Planning, graduate students from UBPL 757: Transportation Planning Implementation worked on recommendations for a Campus Bike Plan that would inform future steps for bike infrastructure and safety as well as how bike access should be incorporated into campus design and expansion.

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to take advantage of KU’s increasingly bike-friendly campus this month by joining Lawrence and Douglas County as they take part in the National Bike Challenge. As part of the challenge you can track your miles, have a friendly competition with friends, family and co-workers, and help Douglas County stand out against other communities across the country. Sign up for the challenge at www.nationalbikechallenge.org.

The city of Lawrence is also looking for input on the development of a city bike share. The proposed network of community bicycles would be available for use by the KU community. To offer your feedback on the creation of a Lawrence bike share, complete the feasibility survey at www.lawrenceks.org/mpo/bikeshare.

For more information about the KU BAC and other biking resources on campus and in the community, visit www.bike.ku.edu.