Schools move to eject cars from campuses
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
23.Aug.08 
$11,000 is actually quite cheap. Nationwide the average cost of constructing a parking spot in a structure is more like $25,000. I did this analysis for my school: http://is.gd/6dH7
Unfortunately, most schools (and other large employers/institutions) are forced by law to provide a huge amount of parking, and are not free to implement any meaningful incentives. See Don Shoup’s book “The High Cost of Free Parking” for more information than you ever wanted on that.
Why give away so-called mountain bikes to people you’re expecting to commute? Those things are the Microsoft Windows of bikes: ubiquitous, ill suited to most tasks for which they are used, and very effective at convincing users that the technology in question (be it bikes or computers) just doesn’t work very well.
I agree completely. Mountain bikes with suspension and knobby tires are a poor first foray into biking BUT, at the same time, many people recognize these bikes (and qualities) as desirable (for whatever reasons). The low end Trek 800 has also been one of the cheapest decent quality bikes on the market making it an easy target for schools still on a budget. Most company’s commuting friendly (or “urban”) bike option is several hundred dollars more.
Either way, at least these are steps in the right direction!