May 12, 2008
Savvy approach to business and biking earns City
Cycles national recognition
jenny.leonard@rochester.edu
City Cycles could be coming soon to campuses all over
the country. At least that’s the entrepreneurial dream of founder Andrew Hall. The 2007
University graduate, along with software designer Adam Baratz ’07,
launched the bicycle borrowing program on the River Campus four years ago
as a way to encourage students to opt for a healthier, more ecofriendly way
to get around. The program recently received attention from the Association
of College Unions International, which brings together college union and
student activities professionals from hundreds of schools in seven
countries. The association gave City Cycles its 2008 Student-Driven Program
of the Year award during its annual conference in New Orleans earlier this
spring.
Michael Jancsy ’10 : “It’s a greener
way to get around, it’s healthier, and it’s fun. But
there’s also this added perk. Bicycles add mobility and give students
freedom to explore their community in a new way.”
“This award demonstrates the unique
entrepreneurial spirit of our students and their commitment to
sustainability. I felt tremendous pride when I accepted the award on their
behalf in front of more than 1,000 colleagues representing national and
international higher educational institutions,” says Anne-Marie
Algier, associate dean of students.
City Cycles, which Hall describes as a bicycle lending
library, is designed to eliminate many of the obstacles that can prevent
college students from using or owning a bike, such as the hassles of
storage, maintenance, and theft protection. Funded by the Students’
Association, City Cycles is home to an ever expanding bevy of bicycles,
including street and tandem styles, that can be reserved and checked-out
for free.
Michael Jancsy ’10, the new program coordinator,
says in the past two years the program has seen a dramatic surge in
participation rates. This semester alone more than 15 percent of
undergraduates used City Cycles at least once, and according to a recent
survey, about half used the bicycles to leave campus and engage in a
community activity.
“There are those obvious benefits from a
program like this one. It’s a greener way to get around,
it’s healthier, and it’s fun. But there’s also this added
perk. Bicycles add mobility and give students freedom to explore their
community in a new way. The feedback I hear from students is that this is
one of the best programs on campus,” says Jancsy.
Beverly Buscemi, the program’s campus
advisor and coordinator of transportation and ticket sales for Student
Activities, says it has been very rewarding to watch City Cycles grow
over the years and to see it now fill an important niche on campus.
“I worked with Andrew and Adam from the beginning, and I was always
impressed by their interest and enthusiasm. They spent many hours
perfecting their approach, testing new ideas, and researching with the goal
of creating a sustainable program that meets the needs of Rochester
students. It’s exciting to see this recognition and to see growing
interest from other colleges and universities who are looking to model
it.”
While bicycle lending programs are not new, notes
Hall, most successful programs operate on a much larger scale such as the
ones that have popped up recently in many European cities, including a
government-funded service in Paris that offers more than 20,000 public
bicycles. In the United States, Hall says, the trend is slowly catching on.
Unlike their larger counterparts, smaller lending
programs, like City Cycles, are less expensive to operate, but still
require a savvy approach if they are to be successful.
Hall credits the success of City Cycles with a
unique business model and a computer tracking system, which Baratz
developed as an undergraduate. It’s a business model that Hall, who
recently finished his Take Five program studying sustainability, is now
pitching to other campuses and communities around the country through his
new company, Shifting Mobility (www.shiftingmobility.com).
“We developed our program model based on
research of other similar campus services, and have honed it during the
past four years of operation,” says Hall. “The programs we
currently design through Shifting Mobility have a terrific cost/usage ratio
that few other college programs can compete with. This makes us attractive
for student associations to fund while our software capabilities take all
the hassle out of program administration.
“The emphasis we’ve placed on offering
high quality, well-maintained bikes as opposed to the refurbished bikes you
often find in similar campus programs pays off enormously both economically
and in user satisfaction. We recognized early in City Cycles’
development that in order to be successful in offering an alternative
transportation service to the public, the experience has to be hassle-free
or users won’t come back. The equipment needs to be available and it
needs to work well. That’s the only approach that will work when
you’re trying to reach the average person, not just the anything-goes
bike enthusiast.”
To keep the bikes in top shape, City Cycles has
partnered with Towpath Bike, a Pittsford company that oversees weekly
maintenance. The lending periods are typically 24 hours, and checkouts are
handled through the Goergen Athletic Center. Students can visit the City
Cycles Web site (www.sa.rochester.edu/ citycycles) to check equipment
availability.
Hall says once students try it, they’re usually
hooked. “It opens up a whole new transportation option. And, for
some, it changes the way they view their connection to the community and
the world around them.”
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