Princeton: An anti-bike university

“That will be $250, ma’am.” Shocked out of my focus on the exploits of Brangelina in People, I turned to gape at the man running the cash register at the local bike shop.

“Excuse me?” I repeated in disbelief, so shocked I wasn’t even insulted of his use of “ma’am” (despite my visible lack of wrinkles). “You can’t be serious. That’s as much as a new bike.”

Heaving a giant sigh, the man, whose nametag cheerfully proclaimed him to be “Mike,” began running a finger down a list of repairs my bike needed. The gear chain was rusted and needed to be replaced, the rusted gear chain had messed up the mechanism of the back brake...

As Mike continued listing every bike repair known to man, I stood there in incredulity, not registering anything he was saying. All I had expected to pay for was a regular tune-up, which I guesstimated to be about $50. I hadn’t thought even in my wildest dreams that I would end up paying five times that to bring my bike back to campus in decent shape in the fall.

After grudgingly forking over the cash, I thought back on the school year and tried to puzzle out what on earth would have happened to my bike. With all the subtlety of a piano dropping out of a penthouse window, it hit me. My bike had been exposed to the elements to such a degree with the extreme weather we had last year that it was unusable after only nine months on campus.

Biking is a very popular alternative to walking and bus riding at Princeton — you arrive at your destination faster and have the side benefit of being in great shape — and this means the lack of covered bike racks is a huge problem. Unless you are willing to drag your bike to Dodge-Osborn in Wilson (the only dorm building that has a bike rack protected from the elements) whenever inclement weather occurs, you pretty much have no choice but to leave your bike outside, leaving it to be rained, snowed or sleeted upon. In late October, less than two months after we return to campus, bikes are already showing signs of wear and tear from being exposed to rain. As the months grow colder and rain becomes icy, the damage visibly accelerates.

From what I have seen, though, snowfall has the most dramatic effect on bikes. When the snow melted a week or so after last semester’s multiple days of record snowfall, the deterioration of bikes on campus was drastic. Almost everyone’s bike had rust on some part — the gear chain, the handlebars — and several bikes at every rack had twisted frames that had bent and contorted under the weight of the snow.

My parents invested in a good bike for me before my freshman year as part of my graduation present. Because of this, I thought it that it was worth the money to repair my bike so I could bring it back to school this year. However, from the majority of people I’ve talked with, this does not seem to be the common decision. Because repairs are expensive, a lot of students ended up buying new bikes every year and then throwing out the old ones. With covered bike shelters minimizing this waste, students would feel more comfortable using biking as their mode of transportation.

The waste produced by uncovered bikes doesn’t just create a monetary cost; it has high environmental one as well. Bikes are not easily recyclable objects, and since a lot of students throw their bikes away each year, the status quo only adds to the problem of overcrowded landfills with large numbers of non-biodegradable objects. There are also broader benefits to encouraging a culture of bike use: Biking is an environmentally friendly form of transportation and helps to reduce the number of cars and buses on the road.

The need to pay for repairs or the cost of a new bike every year makes owning a bike at Princeton incredibly expensive, both in financial and environmental terms. College in general takes a financial toll, and a Princeton education costs more than most. As the overcrowded bike racks all over campus attest, many students use bikes as their daily mode of transportation; providing covered bike racks, then, would serve a significant need, making Princetonians’ lives easier and their wallets heavier.