U of M Raising the Stakes to Bike Instead of Drive Bikers far outnumber the drivers on the road in Japan. Most people prefer to walk or ride their bike to and from work every day. Keeping exercise in their daily rituals helps them stay fit and healthy for a long-life. Imagine how much better life would be here in America if that part of Japan’s culture were to be reflected. For years people have been encouraged to consider a similar lifestyle in America. Bike lanes have been created to provide a safe lane for riding.
What Are the Benefits of Biking? Health and fitness insurance programs have been created to encourage similar behavior, and environmentalists have been pushing it for years. The benefit of biking helps the environment just as much as it helps the people not using their vehicles. Pollutants from excess vehicle use would reduce significantly, clearing up the smoggy air and helping preserve the precious earth. Change is coming hard though, even with the possibility of health insurance benefits, a cleaner environment, and bike lanes. The weather is too hot or too cold. People don’t want to get sweaty or hat hair before coming into work or school. Others simply don’t want to get up in time to make the trip possible. The only way people have found to combat these reasons are by offering incentives to make the experience better, incentives that add on to the bike lane and reduced health insurance rates.
University of Miami’s Push for Biking The University of Miami recently installed a great new incentive to their campus to hopefully push a biking community forward. Near the University Center Rock, the university installed a standing selfservice bicycle repair station.
Students sporting University of Miami apparel can be found maintaining their bikes from this convenient station from time to time. The station is a long, sturdy pole sticking straight up from the ground and extending in two perpendicular prongs that suspend a bike in the air by its seat. These prongs stand about five and a half feet in the air, making it easy to reach any part of the bike without having to bend over much. Attached to the station are a number of useful tools that you might need to fix a flat tire, wobbly wheels, and slipping chains. These tools include screwdrivers, wrenches, Allen wrenches, and an air pump. All you have to do is drop by, lift your bike into the prongs, and get to work. The University of Miami installed this as a part of a private initiative to improve student wellness. Perhaps these students sporting University of Miami apparel are more likely to ride their bikes to campus, knowing that they can fix the easy problems with a simple stop at the self-service station. Maybe more students would ride their bikes around the country if they were on every campus. Perhaps it could become “the thing to do.� If it did, the lives of these future professionals could be changed forever. If their future jobs were within riding distance, they might choose a bike to a car most days out of the year every year for the rest of their working careers. When an entire generation jumps on this bandwagon, it means a cleaner, better fit America. Everyone could benefit from that. Photo Credit: Jonas Tana, Claudio Olivares Medina, Richard Masoner,