{"id":8009,"date":"2018-09-27T12:01:37","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T20:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=8009"},"modified":"2018-10-02T17:31:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T01:31:37","slug":"rolling-out-of-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/rolling-out-of-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolling out of town"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bailey Thompson | News Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

After only a few short months of students riding orange bicycles around Monmouth, the SPIN Bikeshare company decided to move in another direction. Although the bikes were widely utilized during their time on campus \u2014 between the months of April and August \u2014 the choice to remove the bikes was ultimately beyond Western\u2019s control.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the end of May we were having 150 rides a day on the bikes, so we saw that it was pretty successful. Students were using it; feedback we were getting was positive,\u201d said Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Gary Dukes. There was nothing on the university\u2019s end to suspect that the program would not be sustainable.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Dukes recalled that \u201cwe got a call from them saying they were ending their program and within a couple weeks they\u2019d be collecting bikes.\u201d So, with that, the bikeshare program had ended not long after it began.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking to the future, Western is open to the idea of bringing another program \u2014 either with bikes or electric scooters \u2014 to campus, but it would have to be the right fit for the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to see how things are going in Portland with their scooter program because they just started it this summer, and I think there have been mixed responses to their program,\u201d Dukes said. \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting\u2026 is in Portland you can\u2019t ride them on the sidewalks (and) you have to have a helmet. I think that\u2019s an Oregon state law. So, I think we\u2019re not sure how well that would work here\u2026 if anything, we\u2019ve been trying to look at other companies that might bring a bike program back to Western.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With many other bikeshare programs, though, the concern is that the companies are looking for locations to supply additional funding sources beyond the ridership fees, which would essentially force students to pay more for the same service.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just seeing what students want to do moving forward,\u201d Dukes concluded. <\/span><\/p>\n

In time, Western will choose the best solution for its community in the absence of the SPIN bikeshare program. In the meantime, students will just have to wait and see what the future holds.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at bthompson15@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of: Paul F. Davis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bailey Thompson | News Editor After only a few short months of students riding orange bicycles around Monmouth, the SPIN Bikeshare company decided to move in another direction. Although the bikes were widely utilized during their time on campus \u2014 between the months of April and August \u2014 the choice to remove the bikes was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":8010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}