Our group’s student action project within Florida International University’s Honors College focused on the possible development of an on-campus bike rental service for students and faculty. To give us the necessary background information we needed, we looked at existing bike rental services on campuses across the United States and their implementation. The information we gathered is compiled easily here, in our literary review.

        Surprisingly, many colleges and major universities have already implemented bike rental services within their campuses. Andrew Postner’s article, “Bike Share Programs Becoming Increasingly Popular on College Campuses,” (2008) highlights this popular trend by specifying the overall process at St. Xavier University in Chicago. In short, the system works by having students wave their student I.D.s over a docking port that unlocks the bike. The first 15 minutes of the bike ride is free with an additional charge of $2.40 per hour.

        On another perspective, the University of New England had a unique initiative in terms of biking on campus. Rather than create a service program, the university gives free bikes to incoming freshman that promise to leave their cars at home. This incentive has proven to work well for those who are freshmen that live on campus not only at the University of New England, but Ripon College as well. The president of Ripon, Dr. David Joyce, implemented the inducement ‘‘‘as a means of reducing the means for parking’’’ (Zezima, 2015). FIU experiences the same issue as Ripon, and the use of a free bike for every freshman living on campus at FIU would reserve more parking spaces for commuters. The bikes that are given to the incoming students are obtained through donations of old bikes, and are repaired at a fairly low cost. Similarly, FIU could obtain donations from the entire city of Miami in order to provide bikes and reduce parking issues on campus.  

        Furthermore, Zagster, startup founded by Drexel University graduates in Pennsylvania in 2007, rents bicycles on different college campuses, cities and corporations throughout the United States. Very much like the CitiBikes stations and bicycles we see in Miami, bikes are unlocked through payment with the Zagster app. During the trip, bikes can be locked at several "stopover locations" and locked and unlocked again with the phone. In the case of FIU, a subdivision of the FIU app, linked with each student's login credentials for traceability and insurance purposes, could be created. Zagster is an efficient and successful system, which Florida International University could realistically partner with, which also designs and implements the bicycle stations and the actual bicycle renting system, while guaranteeing maintenance as well.

        Interestingly enough, the campus of FIU does have a Bike shop that opened in the Fall semester of 2012. According to FIU’s Office of University Sustainability (2011) the Bike shop provides information regarding safe biking on campus, local rides, events, and acts as a repair shop for students who own bikes. The fact that there is an establishment within the FIU campus that concerns biking is a promising start, and the FIU Bike Shop can be extended by not only providing information and repair services, but can eventually provide a rental service for students if it is properly advertised and marketed.

        Lastly, the presence of bicycles on college campuses add a degree of recognition to the latter. It is only beneficial for a college or university to be pictured as "green", focused on ecology and willing to make efforts to reduce cars and other motorized vehicles' toxic emissions. A bike-friendly campus can only be seen by prospective and current students as innovative and in touch with its era and its community. The League of American Bicyclists, nonprofit organization advocating the benefits of bicycling and gathering bicyclists from all over the United States since 1880, has created a subdivision of their organization dedicated to universities. This subdivision studies college and university campuses across the country and award a certification of being a "Bike-Friendly University" (BFU), to campuses who meet their standards of bicycling accessibility and opportunities. Hence, if Florida International University made an effort to implement a bicycle rental system with an acceptable infrastructure and organization, it would have an opportunity to be given the BFU award by the nonprofit organization, which will greatly benefit the way it will be perceived both nationally and State-wise.