Campus Connection

Donate it to UW-L’s Green Bike Program UW-La Crosse’s Green Bike Program, which shares and recycles bikes, has run out of bikes for the first time in its 10-year history. You can help by donating a bike — whether it’s in working condition or not. Donations will ease parking and traffic congestion in the campus area, help get more students biking, promote a healthy lifestyle, decrease automobile use, and help keep waste out of the landfill. To donate a bike, bring it to the Outdoor Connection in the Recreational Eagle Center, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. The program has checked out 60 bikes during the first week of school and doesn’t have any more to repair. “We have been cleaned out,” says Nathan Barnhart, Assistant Director of Recreational Sports. “This is a first! We’ve never run out of bikes and always have had plenty of bikes in the que to repair, but not this year. When I look at the storage area all I see is extra wheels.” UW-L’s Environmental Council started the Green Bike program in 2004 when council members and volunteers fixed more than 100 donated bikes, painted them green and placed them throughout campus and the city to function as free community bikes. Today, the program is housed in Outdoor Connection and operates as a low cost, long-term rental program. The program has refurbished and rented over 500 bikes and recycled more than 70,000 pounds of metal. Find out more about the program at www.uwlax.edu/recsports/UWLGreenBikes.html.