Bikes Push Green Transit

A new bicycle sharing program will give Harvard students access to eight pedal-propelled vehicles this spring as part of a new program sponsored by the Environmental Action Committee that aims to raise awareness for alternative modes of transportation.

Known as VeriFast Bicycles, the new program will station four bicycles each at Mather and Cabot Houses, and will allow students to check the bikes out—along with helmets, locks, and lights—from the superintendent’s office in each house, said Karen McKinnon ‘10, the chair of the Environmental Action Committee.

The new program will launch April 25 at the Environmental Action Committee’s Earth Day festivities, where students will be able to see the new bikes and sign waivers to participate in the bike sharing.

The program will debut just two months after the city of Boston announced that it would move ahead with a bike-sharing program, set to launch in 2010, that aims eventually to residents access to 6,000 communal bicycles.

The Harvard program will begin with only eight loanable bicycles, but the Committee intends to use the initial responses of students as a barometer for how fast the program should grow, McKinnon said.

“The hope is that over time we will expand the program into either every single house or, at the very least, every neighborhood of houses,” stated McKinnon.

Alex Gation, an employee at the Quad Bike Shop in Cambridge, said he thought the time was right for a bike sharing program to succeed.

“The demand for alternative means of transportation on campus has increased tremendously lately,” he said. “Our store has been so busy with bicycle and tune-up requests that we are struggling just to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for bicycles.”

In 2004, the Environmental Action Committee proposed an initiative to the student body that allowed them to add a $10 fee to their term bill to help fund innovative wind energy on campus, McKinnon said.

The administration vetoed the initiative, but pledged to match any amount of funding that the Environmental Action Committee could raise for other environmentally-friendly projects—including the bike sharing program, McKinnon said.

For his part, bike shop employee Gation offered a positive prognosis for the program.

“Any program which allows students to move around campus efficiently and inexpensively will most likely be successful,” said Gation. “I think that this loanable bike initiative will quickly gain popularity amongst the students.”