Tallahassee Democrat

Monday, September 10, 2001, updated at 12:38AM

FSU's bike program won't be tried again

By Gerald Ensley DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER

You can always count on human nature.

Which explains what happened to the 20 bicycles that Florida State University bought last fall for anyone to use as free transportation around campus:

All the bikes were stolen before the first semester was over.

"I was very disappointed," said Laura Miller, FSU's acting director of parking services. "The program was a washout, unfortunately.”

The bikes, all one-speed, unisex, bright yellow-painted cruisers, were purchased for $200 apiece. They were an effort to fight traffic congestion by encouraging students, faculty and staff to leave their cars parked when traveling across campus. The idea was that one would bike to a building and prop the bike outside, and then someone else would ride it to another building.

Miller said she saw a handful of FSU staff members riding the bikes early in the fall, though never any students. She said parking services officials searched campus for the missing bikes, scouring dormitory halls and bike racks without success. She said a couple of the bikes eventually were found off-campus "in tattered shape, with bent rims."

Miller, who was previously the assistant director of parking services, said the bikes were simply an experiment, which would have been expanded had it proved a success. Now, despite FSU's ongoing efforts to reduce traffic and parking problems, the bike program won't be tried again.

Miller said FSU officials weren't completely surprised the free bike program failed.

"I think there was a hope that the honor system would work," Miller said. "But we never lost sight of the realities of the modern world."

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

Answers

$200 each for a one speed bike in a quanity of 20 units? They though this was a good deal as they were $300 for one? sheeeeeesh. They would have been better off to pay $100 for 10 speed bikes and use the difference for gps sending units to track the locations of the bikes for quick recovery or save the difference. This is the moral code of the students at FSU? Come on Bobby. Shape those students up.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2001