The Student Government Association and The Office of Student Life will re-institute the Ride Rack and relax Program on Friday, February 27. The Ride Rack and Relax Program, a community bike sharing program, was first introduced in the spring of 2003. SGA and Student Life have been working to implement the program for spring 2004 and make changes to enhance services for riders. The program was limited to Danieley Center and Moseley last spring but will be campus-wide for spring of 2004. Riders can ride the bikes to and from any location on University property, from Danieley Center to North Campus and Jordan Center to East Area. Twenty-seven new and refurbished bicycles are available for spring riders. The bikes are blue and red and have Ride, Rack and Relax signs secured on them. Riders can simply choose a Ride, Rack and Relax bike, ride it to their campus location and return it to a campus bike rack.
The community bike program was well received by students last spring but some of the bikes were vandalized and/or stolen. The committee examined ways to enhance ridership for the spring by purchasing additional bikes and repairing those that could be repaired. Teddy Coin, chair of the Community Bike Committee, also met with campus officials to develop more effective methods of dealing with offenders who vandalize or steal bikes. Persons who steal or vandalize the bike will be referred to the judicial system for adjudication and may be charged a $200 fine. A bike manager will check for bikes and inventory them weekly for damages. The bikes are registered with Campus Police and the Town of Elon to make recovering them more efficient.
Campus riders are reminded to follow all bike safety precautions and to treat the bikes with respect. The community bike program is designed to make cross-campus transit more convenient for students and to reduce reliance on cars for cross-campus business.
For more information regarding the Ride, Rack and Relax Program, please contact student chair, Richard “Teddy” Coin at rcoin@elon.edu.