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It’s 8:53 a.m. Class in Neville Hall starts in seven minutes. Too bad it is more than a seven minute walk from Kennebec Hall. Driving is an option – but parking is not. Then there it is, a vision in green, a bicycle. The savior of your morning.
“Green bikes are free for everyone to use,” a plate on the bike reads. “Free to ride but not to keep. Leave it for others to use. Please don’t lock me up and ride at your own risk.”
Green Bikes is a new program being sponsored by the Student Environmental Action Coalition. Students involved with the project are taking old bikes, fixing them, painting them green and putting them out at the University of Maine for people to use.
“A lot of these are 60s or 70s bikes,” Brian Bock, a volunteer bike mechanic said.
But those are not even the oldest machines-Jessica Tisdale, another volunteer and S.E.A.C. member – said many of the green bikes are from the `40s and `50s.
“Random people will talk to us and bikes will show up at the trailer,” she said.
The trailer is Green Bike’s home base, a tractor trailer box located behind the Depot at the edge of the woods. Right now, that trailer houses about 25 bikes the group is working on to make road-worthy.
“Bikes are getting road-worthy every day,” Bock said. “It’s kind of neat.”
Bock said the concept behind getting these bikes on the road is so the bikes are around campus, as well as Orono and Old Town, when people need to get someplace.
“[The bikes] would be an excellent resource for students who don’t have a car to get to the store,” Bock said.
But the real reasoning behind the Green Bikes program is to keep the environment clean. Tisdale hopes Green Bikes will help make UMaine a primarily walking and biking campus, which would cut down on pollution and other problems.
“I thought this would go a long way to solving the parking problems,” she said.
There are other advantages, however.
“It’s environmental,” Bock said. “But also, riding bikes is fun.”
But the program is not without potential problems.
“I originally heard this idea first from a girl who got a similar campaign going in Madison, Wisconsin called Red Bikes,” Bock said. “She said it was a lot of fun and it was a good way to mess around with bikes.”
The problems come when other people start to mess around with the bikes.
“It’s going to happen,” Bock said.
The group is trying to not bring attention to the fact some bikes will be trashed, but Tisdale hopes people will respect the work that goes into fixing them.
“We’re worried but we’re trying to get work out to people and educate people about what they are,” she said.
The plaques on the bikes, sponsored by Attorney Ted Curtis, are one way organizers are trying to get the word out.
Another potential problem with the Green Bikes program consistencyis something UMaine has seen before. A similar program was started about 10 years ago but the momentum died when students involved graduated. Matt Young, president of S.E.A.C, said this time they have taken measures to make sure this does not happen. He said the group wanted focus on longevity so the program continues after the founders graduate.
“Last semester we worked on infrastructure,” he said. “We made all our connections with administration and staff.”
The group was also allocated $2,000 from the General Student Senate to cover operating expenses.
S.E.A.C members hope to add to the current fleet of bikes available, releasing about 10 more at the beginning of the summer. There are only about three on the road now but they hope a sizable fleet will be in operation by fall 2001. Bock said it takes at least three or four hours to make any one bike ready for the road. But Tisdale is glad the bikes that have hit the road are still around.
“It’s encouraging to see people still on the ones we already sent out,” she said.
Anyone interested in working on the bikes or interesting in donating a bike should write to the S.E.A.C folder on FirstClass. The group will also be working on the bikes on the Mall Maine Day starting at 8 a.m.
