A week after its unofficial introduction, the Bike Library officially began last Saturday. The new program is free for students and faculty to use.

At the ribbon cutting ceremony, the three project leaders — Jessica Berei, Austin Brandes and Mari Moroz — gave a brief explanation of how students can access the bikes.

“It’s a pretty seamless and easy process,” Berei said. “A student just has to come into Olmsted to the Student Life Center, and they have to bring their ID. We have an iPad set up in there.”

According to Berei, students must sign a liability waiver for check out a bike. They are given a helmet and a key to the bike lock. Then they are on their way.

The project began with the foundation of a First Year Seminar, “I Want to Ride My Bicycle: Cycling and Social Change.”

The group of first-year activists applied for and received a grant of $10,000 from The Wellmark foundation in support of the bike project on campus.

“The LEAD concentration took the grant on,” Moroz said. “There’s a LEAD 100 class that took on the project and started in with more of the details,” senior Mari Moroz said.

A three-year partnership with the Des Moines Bicycle Collective, a local nonprofit organization representing the impassioned cycling community, was initiated soon after the grant was received.

Read more...(Page doesn't display in Chrome.)