Texas A&M U Installs Dockless Bike System
Texas A&M Transportation Services partnered with ofo to introduce 500 dockless bicycles to campus in early March. Next semester, an additional 4,000 ofo bikes will be introduced to campus.
U California San Diego Partners With Lyft
In an effort to meet the university’s evolving transportation needs, the university and Lyft formally announced a partnership to provide access to alternative commuter options, safe rides for students, patient transport, designated pick-up and drop-off locations, direct billing for business travel, and ride credits for certain university-sponsored events.
U Kentucky Offers Commute Planning Assistance
In an effort to increase the number of campus community members using alternative modes of transportation, the university's Transportation Services now offers free personalized commute planning assistance.
Webster U to Offer Bike-Share Service
The university will roll out a bike-share service to campus in March that will be free for short, two-hour trips and have a nominal cost for longer trips.
Harvard U Installs Rails on Trucks to Protect Cyclists & Pedestrians
After a successful pilot to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, university fleet technicians have begun installing side guards on all existing, eligible Harvard-owned trucks, including box trucks, and solid waste and recycling trucks. Harvard has also begun asking vendors that drive large trucks to campus to install side guards on eligible trucks as quickly as possible.
California State U Northridge Rolls Out Bike Rental Program
In mid-January, LimeBike delivered 400 bicycles to the campus that are now part of a rental program to provide an alternative mode of transportation to the campus community. There is no membership fee required, however the rental fee is 50 cents per half hour with no time limit. Solar-powered GPS units will allow the university to determine where bike lanes are most needed.
Maharishi U Management Students Build Electric Vehicle Charging Station for Campus Use
Eleven students in a recent course on energy and sustainability built a charging station for electric cars that is attached to its Sustainable Living Center grid. The station uses some of the excess energy from the wind turbine and solar panels that power the building. The charging station, which is free for anyone to use, was set up for about $600.
U North Carolina Chapel Hill Rolls Out Bike Sharing
The official launch of UNC’s new Tar Heel Bikes program happened in late October, offering students the opportunity to rent a bike from one of 18 hubs on campus. The new bike-share program is one of the latest efforts in the university’s Three Zeros Environmental Initiative, which aims to reduce waste, water use and carbon dioxide emissions on campus.
U California Los Angeles Launches Bike-Share Program
Developed in partnership with CycleHop, Bruin Bike Share will start with 130 bikes distributed at 18 hubs. Cyclists can rent the bikes for $7 an hour or purchase a plan that includes 90 minutes of daily riding time.
Humboldt State U Introduces Bike Sharing
The university, in conjunction with the city of Arcata, launched the Zagster bike-share service to help students, staff and faculty get around campus and town while reducing their carbon footprint. The university has two bike stations while the city is planning to host four stations.
Arizona State U to Implement Bike-Share Program
A new regional bike rental program with four stations will soon be available to the campus community. A unique aspect to this service is the freedom to park bikes at either the service's hubs or at a public rack.
U Kentucky Introduces Car Sharing
University students and staff can now check-out one of two vehicles parked on campus through a university partnership with Zipcar. The car sharing program is part of a suite of alternative transportation options available to the campus community designed to simplify the process of shifting from driving a single-occupancy vehicle to campus to an alternative form of transportation, and to reward those individuals who make the change in their routine.
Pennsylvania State U University Park to Launch Bike Sharing Program
The university's Transportation Services and Zagster, Inc., have announced the launch of a new bike-share program that will open with 85 bikes across 17 stations for members to use for on-demand, local trips. The program will offers memberships for students, faculty and staff, and community members, as well as single-use rides for non-members.
Flinders U to Introduce Driverless Electric Bus
(Australia) The new autonomous, solar-powered bus will be used at the university's Tonsley campus. A 320,000 Australian dollar ($253,000) solar garage will be built, capable of recharging about six electric vehicles at once, including the new autonomous bus. The university won AU$1 million in state government funding to trial the autonomous bus technology, and will also use another AU$3 million from other investors to run the project over the next five years.
U Philippines Baguio Implements Carless Wednesdays
(Philippines) In an effort to reduce the university's carbon footprint, the university began Carless Wednesdays, prohibiting the campus community and visitors from parking cars on university property each Wednesday.
Bournemouth U Initiates Employee Sustainability Program
After a six-month pilot of a behavior change program reduced energy consumption by 14.6 percent across four departments, the university is expanding the program to all staff members. The initiative works by engaging employees on a range of themes through an online platform and app. Employees are rewarded with points for reducing their environmental footprint and improving their well-being through measures such as cycling, car-sharing or using re-usable cups and bottles.
U California San Diego Tests Vehicle-to-Grid Charging Platforms
A San Diego-based company will use the university to pilot its new vehicle-to-grid technology, which allows a parked electric vehicle to become part of the electric grid by enabling charging from and discharging to the grid. Drivers will be paid for energy discharged from their car while still being guaranteed the expected level of charge needed to operate the vehicle.
U Maryland to Complete 2 MW Photovoltaic Project
Three soon-to-be-completed solar canopies, totaling 2.17 megawatts, will help the campus exceed its on-campus renewable energy goal of generating 2.7 megawatts of solar power for university facilities by 2018. The solar canopies are a part of the President's Purchased Power Initiative, which aims to ensure 100 percent of purchased power comes from renewable sources by 2020.
American U Offsets Study Abroad Air Travel Emissions With International Project
The Paradigm Project, an endeavor that benefits communities in Africa by empowering women and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through reduced deforestation, is the university's new investment to reduce emissions from study abroad-related travel. The Office of Sustainability announced that this is the first project in what will be a portfolio of offset investments aligned with certain remaining sources of emissions that cannot be fully managed through efficiency and other mitigation strategies.
Indiana U Adds Electric Vehicles to Fleet
The first all-electric cars were recently added to university fleet operations. Four 2017 Nissan Leafs will be used in various campus operations, including one that employees can rent for university business.
Cornell U Announces Bike-Share Program
Partnering with Zagster to launch an updated and expanded bike-share program, Big Red Bikes Bike Share, the new program features 32 cruiser bikes available at five locations around campus for riders to check out for on-demand, local trips.
U Kentucky Program Pays Employees to Use Transportation Alternatives
The university's Transportation Services has launched a pilot program to give $200 each to up to 200 qualified employees who agree to forgo bringing a motor vehicle to campus for one year. The goal of the program is to reduce the number of motor vehicles on campus and create a more pedestrian friendly community.
U Idaho Begins Fueling Trucks With Biodiesel
The university's Steam Plant has begun reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their operation by fueling their semi-truck and front-end loaders with a 20-percent blend of biodiesel made on campus from used cooking oil from Dining Services.
U Maryland Student Launches Ride-Sharing App
A sophomore accounting major launched CarPo on March 1 after almost a year and a half of planning and developing the app. Through the app, students looking for rides to and from their hometowns and colleges are able to see registered students with cars who are already driving to the same place.
Ball State U Releases Bicycle Plan
In an effort to reduce the negative impacts from automobile trips and parking, including impervious surfaces, emissions, and the heat island effect, the new plan encourages cycling on campus by proposing dedicated bicycle paths, shared multi-use paths, and establishing bike lanes on existing streets.
Texas A&M U Begins Bike-Share Program
In order to provide an alternative mode of transportation on campus, A&M Transportation Services contracted with Zagster to implement a bike-share program, a 24-hour service intended to help the campus community get around quickly, efficiently and inexpensively on the 5,200-acre campus. The bikes are checked out for a small fee using smartphone technology or text messages with regular cell phones, and are equipped with safety lights, internal gears, a lock attached to the bike, front basket and bell. There are 75 bikes on campus and 10 racks.
U California Irvine Converts Bus Fleet to All Electric
The student-funded and -operated Anteater Express shuttle service is acquiring 20 all-electric buses to the tune of $15 million. The buses will roll onto campus for the 2017-18 academic year, joining a hydrogen electric bus, to provide more than 2 million pollution-free rides annually. Undergraduates voted to pay up to $40 per quarter to the Associated Students of UCI to cover the bus purchase.
Princeton U Art Museum Purchases Solar Powered Vehicles
The art museum recently purchased solar panels to power two low speed vehicles for staff use. Inspired by the upcoming 2018 exhibition, Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment, the project was funded out of a university sustainability fund, High Meadows Foundation Sustainability Fund, a mechanism that provides money for campus sustainability projects, with an emphasis on measurable outcomes and culture change.
U California Riverside Launches Bike-Share Program
The bike-share program, hosted by Zagster, allows university community members to access its bikes through the download of its mobile application. Rental of a bike is free for the first two hours, with the remainder of rental time costing $1 per hour, with a $6 per day maximum.
U North Carolina Wilmington Begins Bike Sharing Program
As of November 2016, there are 25 bicycles at five racks across campus, and in early January that will grow to 70 bikes at seven locations. Students, faculty and staff can receive one free hour of bike time per day, or can pay an annual $25 fee for four hours of daily use.
League of American Bicyclists Announces 2016 Campus Designations
Bicycle Friendly University award designations grew this year with 37 campuses obtaining a designation for the first time. Eleven campuses moved up from one designation to another, with a total of 51 campuses now having the Bicycle Friendly Designation, a program of The League of American Bicyclists.
U Maryland Students Say 'No' to New Parking Lot
Students struck down a resolution supporting the construction of a 1,000 space, permeable-pavement parking lot on what is currently a wooded area on campus. Members of the student Residence Hall Association expressed concerns that the new lot would jeopardize the environment and weren't in line with the university's sustainability goals. One student was quoted as saying, "Green spaces are increasingly rare and increasingly more beneficial to mental health."
Brandeis U Commences New Carpool Program
Commute Green, the university's new carpool service, enables community members to share rides, find ways to campus via multiple routes like biking, walking and busing, and see on an interactive map the locations of bike racks, bike pumps and bike repair stations.
Oregon State U-Cascades Offers Car Sharing
A new partnership with Zipcar now allows campus and surrounding community members to check out one of two vehicles on a daily or hourly basis. This additional transportation option for students and employees is an alternative to bringing a car to campus.
Texas A&M U Completes Glowing-Paint Bike Lane
Initiated by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Texas A&M Transportation Services after conducting a campus bike study that concluded in 2015, one of the campus' busiest intersections now has photo-luminescent paint to illuminate the bicycle lane to ensure safety amongst cyclists, motorists, vehicles and pedestrians as well as amplify protection and mobility. The solar-powered paint will store energy during the daytime and emit the light at night.
Union College Installs EV Charging Stations
Two electric vehicle charging stations are now available to students, faculty and staff for use in four-hour blocks. A Planning and Priorities grant, awarded each year for projects that support the college’s strategic plan, will pay for the stations and will cover electricity use during the first year.
Pennsylvania State U Contracts with Ride Sharing Service
A service of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Zimride is now being offered to the campus community. Zimride, an online ride matching service that connects drivers and passengers heading to the same area, helps reduce vehicle emissions, traffic congestion and fuel consumption while splitting transportation costs.
Suffolk CC Joins Community Car-Free Day
The community college and Suffolk County jointly hosted a Car Free Day Long Island Summit. The event, which SCCC President Shaun McKay kicked off, included discussion about sustainable transportation options available to the community in an effort to reduce transportation-related carbon emissions, which is 30 percent according to a regional sustainability plan.
Salisbury U Begins New Bike Sharing Service
The new alternative transportation service has been launched with a fleet of 100 bicycles, each individually named after a musician or band, such as Katy Perry or Grateful Dead. The program charges $1 per hour with no distance restrictions. However, when bicycles are returned to the university campus, they must be locked to a sanctioned bike rack.
Three Universities Win National Transportation Award
The Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) announced Texas A&M University and University of California Los Angeles as the finalists in the Marketing & Outreach Awards; and University of California Irvine won the Commuting Options Awards for biking. The awards provide the opportunity to acknowledge the work of leading organizations and individuals in the transportation demand management industry.
