Bike-share Meets Lafayette

In recent years, Lafayette College set a goal to create sustainable transportation methods. The removal of several on-campus roads paired with the reduction in parking and expansion of vehicle regulations have shown that the college is committed to providing a safe and sustainable environment for students and faculty to travel. In other words, Lafayette wants to decrease the number of vehicles on campus. Despite this, many individuals use their cars to travel around College Hill.

A bike-share system would support Lafayette’s initiative of sustainable transportation. Such a system allows a user to check out a bicycle from a central location on campus, ride to their desired location, and then return it later. This bike-share program would ideally eliminate the desire to drive around College Hill and encourage users to explore College Hill. This would result in a safer and healthier community environment. The most common reason for driving around College Hill is that walking takes a long time; as seen on figure 1, many popular destinations on College Hill require an average round trip of 16 minutes while walking, but the same trip requires only 4 minutes biking.

In this report, we will be defining the scope, challenges and mitigating factors, and proposing three solutions for a bike-share program on Lafayette’s campus. We focused on two different approaches to developing the program: outsourcing and doing it yourself. Each solution encompasses a technical and economic analysis. By evaluating each solution with defined criteria we will demonstrate which solution will be the most feasible based on scores for ease of use, cost, reliability, and ease of implementation.

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To navigate accross the page please use the following links:
• The Team
• Defining the Scope
• Challenges and Mitigating Factors
• Solutions
• Conclusion
• Bibliography