Sustainability Team Repairs Bikes on Campus

On April 1, the Student Association Senate hosted a Bike Repair Cafe event from 1 – 4 p.m., in collaboration with the Sustainability Ambassadors and the Office of Academic Affairs. The event took place in front of the Humanities building and provided students with the opportunity to bring their bikes for repairs, register their bikes on campus, learn about bike safety and receive free reflective gear. 

The event was spearheaded by fourth-year visual arts major Wren Kingsley, a member of the Sustainability Ambassadors’ Bike-Friendly University team and the New Paltz Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee. She felt it was important to have a bike repair event, as she noticed a growing bike culture on campus.

“If students are choosing to bike, we want to make sure that they are rewarded with reflective gear and tools that will help them succeed,” she said. “It’s a joy to be on a bike, and it’s really intimidating sometimes to get your bike maintained in a way that is going to support the longevity of the machine itself. We have members in the community who are experts and want to share knowledge, and grow your confidence in being able to repair and maintain objects for yourself.”

After living in Denmark for a year and biking wherever she went, Kingsley developed a strong passion for biking and believes that “New York can have bike culture like Europe. It’s a sustainable way to move around and the fastest way to move around, especially with small commutes to and from school.” 

She would love to see bike culture on campus grow even more and is working directly with her fellow Sustainability Ambassadors and community members to help make this change happen. Kingsley’s team identifies obstacles for bikers on campus and brainstorms ways of solving them.

“We don’t have any covered bike racks at the moment, which is an issue, except for the ones that are underneath buildings, like the library one. But even there, when people put their bikes there they leave them there forever because they’re the only place to keep your bike where it’s covered and protected from the elements,” she said. “So it’s hard to have [students] be like ‘I’m gonna choose to ride my bike,’ but then there’s very little infrastructure that makes it frictionless.” However, her team is currently working on ways around this issue.

“The Sojourner Truth courtyard is being scheduled for renovation within the next two years. I have been working with Jeffrey Lewis, who’s a campus architect and he is planning to put three covered bike racks in that courtyard, so that’s a huge win for bikes on campus,” said Kingsley. 

Thanks to initiatives such as the Bike Repair Cafe event and plans to implement more bike racks on campus, the Sustainability Ambassador Team is promoting a positive culture around biking, which is important in building a more eco-friendly world. 

For students looking to get involved, the Sustainability Ambassadors Team is accepting applications this summer to be a year long ambassador.