Covered bike storage needed for Forest Grove campus

I attended last week’s CASSS meeting with President Hallick and her cabinet. Students from all facets of campus came to represent themselves or their organizations and requests stemmed from the purchase of a Greek house, to increasing the maximum number of credits a student can take, to installing shared printers in the residence halls. Some desires were excessive and frivolous; others were in dire need of attention.

One of our commuting students took for floor and stated that the current bike rack situation is unacceptable. Other students at the meeting cheered their agreement and added their own feedback to the issue.

Students that live off campus and ride their bikes to school each day voiced that Pacific has limited on campus daily storage. In the past years, the places students can park their bikes has become even more restricted with the added rule prohibiting students from leaving their bikes on the University Center patio.

For the racks that do exist, and I can only think of the one next to Walter Hall across from the U.C., it’s always packed and the racks are uncovered. It’s no secret that Oregon winters are wet and we shouldn’t plan on getting a real sunny day till about May. Maybe June.

Campus needs more bike space and we need some kind of structure to cover it because frankly, though Portland chic, sometimes the plastic grocery bag just doesn’t cut it.

Sure, the residence halls have bike storage, but students living off campus don’t have access to those. Their bikes sit outside vulnerable not only to the elements, but also to theft. I know several people who’ve had bikes stolen from campus, even if their bikes were locked. Having a lit storage facility could help counteract this problem, and adding cameras would be just another bonus. Students have enough things to worry about with classes, homework and jobs: getting their bike stolen shouldn’t be one of them.

The ideal situation would be to have more bike racks that are covered, locked, lit and surveillanced and I think this can be made possible with a little commitment from the university.

This is just one of the solvable problems students brought forth concerning how to improve the Pacific experience. The students have spoken, administration; now show us you’re listening.