Student Union

Hey everyone! My name is Mamatha Challa, and I'm in the College of Arts and Sciences. Currently, I am serving as a senator on Student Union, and I work on SU Senate’s “University Initiatives” Committee.

On October 30th, I had a wonderful meeting with my assigned Administrator, Mr. Art Ackermann. Art Ackermann is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Management. Our conversation focused on two main topics: making the Danforth campus more bike-friendly, and the idea of implementing a bicycle sharing system on campus.

Bike-Friendly Pathways/Docks
In case you don’t know, our Administration is currently in the middle of a large initiative to make the Danforth Campus more bike-friendly. In our meeting, Mr. Ackermann discussed many plans related to this initiative. Examples of projects that the Administration is considering are separated rider and pedestrian pathways, specific bicycle parking docks strategically located around campus, and teaming up with the “Great Rivers Greenway.” Part of Great Rivers Greenway’s mission is to interconnect St. Louis with one long bicycle path, and our University is considering helping out by placing a part of the City’s bicycle path through the Danforth campus.

Implementing a University-recognized Bicycle-Sharing Program on Campus
After hearing all this fascinating news about our school’s current movement towards increasing and maintaining bicycle usage on campus, I was incredibly excited to present Mr. Ackermann with our idea of implementing a bike-sharing program on campus. Bike sharing systems are systems where a fleet of bicycles is available at a network of unattended stations for short-term use. Currently, our committee would consider strategically placing Bike Share docks at locations that have a lot of bicycle traffic, such as the DUC, the South 40, and the Sam Fox School. Students would be able to access a bicycle at a station by either keying in or swiping their campus card. Then, the student could use that bike to travel to another station on-campus. After dropping off the bike at that station, any other student would be able to access it.

Mr. Ackermann seemed interested to learn more about the idea, and is going to be contacting one of the company’s that we proposed as a system supplier. In return, he asked for our committee to get him more information on how exactly bike-sharing systems work on other college campuses. Our next step will be contacting other universities with these types of programs, in order to get student testimonials about the true quality of these systems on campuses, as well as to get any extra advice. Additionally, our committee is putting together a student survey, which will help gauge the amount of student interest there is in SU working to implement such a system. I’ll be meeting with Mr. Ackermann in two weeks, and he’s also asked Liz Kramer (who works on Sustainability issues for the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor of Administration) to help out. Our hope, as of right now, is to use all this information and discussion in order to properly implement some sort of pilot program in the future.

That’s it for now! If you are even remotely interested in this topic, have some suggestions, or would like to learn more, feel free to comment/email me and let me know!

Thanks!

-Mamatha Challa

On Thursday, September 27th I met with Cheif Don Strom of WUPD on behalf of the Campus Services Committee of Senate. My main inquiry was about the chained gates that line the South Forty, and if those could perhaps be unchained if a card-reader was installed. The meeting went well. In a nut shell, those gates were chained as a safety precaution a few years ago. While making the decision to chain them, WUPD employed a variety of people (ResLife, students, etc.) and created a task force, which ultimately made the decision. Over the summer, there was another fence installed closing off Wallace Dr. (the street by Hurd House). The gate on this fence is card-accessible.

During this meeting, the topic of bike theft came up. Recently, there has been an increase of this type of theft on campus and by the off campus apartments. In almost all cases, the bikes that were stolen were locked with a cable lock. I encourage everyone with a bike to take it in to WUPD's office (located right next to Ursa's) and get it registered. In addition to registering it, they will supply you with a (inexpensive!) titanium U-lock. The cost of the lock will get put on your WashU bill, so you don't even need cash on hand.

Liz Jordan

Sophomore, C-Serve Committee