Bikes on California Ave, UC Davis, originally uploaded by amsthirty.

Here’s a USA Today article citing some examples of high schools and universities looking to deter students from bringing cars to campus through various changes and incentive programs. The crown jewel example is Ripon College’s precedent setting program where they’ve agreed to offer incoming freshmen a brand new Trek mountain bike in exchange for not bringing a car to campus; pretty sweet deal if you ask me. What I find interesting about this type of incentive program is that the school may actually save money by giving each student a $300 bike; get everyone to ditch their car and you won’t have to build new parking lots/structures. I know at my local university one single parking space comes at the cost of $11,000…ELEVEN THOUSAND!

Other programs listed to discourage car usage and/or encourage bicycle usage are on campus bicycle shops, loaner bikes (ie bike library), more bike racks on campus, pathways and more.

Check out the full article: Schools move to eject cars from campuses - USA Today