It’s final’s week, but you couldn’t study because you were up until 4 a.m. finishing your 10-page paper. You almost miss the bus. After arriving on campus you realize that in your hurry to catch the bus you left your essay in the printer at home.
Enter city and regional planning senior Alex Padilla, and a group project that he has championed. Titled “Slo Rollin,” his group’s project utilizes the concept of bike sharing, which has been gaining popularity around the world.
The program would put multiple bike stations all over San Luis Obispo. Anyone needing quick transportation could quickly rent a bike by swiping a credit card or membership card that would unlock a bike. Then when they arrive at their destination, they drop it off at another station.
Civil engineering graduate student Spencer Mullaney collaborated on the project all winter quarter. He said such a program has unique challenges and benefits in a small city.
“Cars aren’t that quick to get around San Luis Obispo, especially if you need to go to and from campus. By the time you get to the parking lot, find a spot and walk to class, you probably could have ridden a bike in half the time,” he said.
The small size of San Luis Obispo could hurt the project as well. The popularity of this idea is mainly attributed to the “Vélib'” system established in Paris, France in 2007. There, the program currently uses 20,000 bicycles and has an automated station every few hundred yards.
In Paris, the bike sharing program was started by an ad agency, who, in return for starting the program, received premium on-street ad space from the city.
“In that sense San Luis Obispo isn’t that big of a draw for large ad agencies and outside financing so initially from a start-up standpoint, its probably a hindrance,” Mullaney said.
Despite the small size of San Luis Obispo, Padilla hopes his group’s proposal would garner support from the community, including Cal Poly’s student body.
“We definitely need community support, from the bicycle community, from the city and from the community residents. It’s hard to put a timetable on it, but once we have support of those three groups, we are definitely looking at a couple of years down the road,” he said.
There is some budding excitement from those in the community who have heard about the project, Padilla said.
“This idea obviously sounds great and I look forward to hearing information about its progress,” Associated Students Inc. President Kelly Griggs said. “From what I understand, there is a lot of positives and it would be great to see something like this here in San Luis Obispo.”
The project will most likely run under a nonprofit model that would keep rental rates to a minimum. Depending on a person’s membership, they could get up to the first hour of a rental free, and then as little as $2 for the next hour.
Mullaney said affordability is the key to this project’s success.
“The whole point is not to make money and not to expand into this huge business that takes over the world, but rather just a way too break even, maybe turn a small profit in order to expand in the future. Most importantly (we want) to provide bike access to a lot of people and encourage those short trips station to station,” he said.
The goals of the project are to make San Luis Obispo more sustainable and create a program that benefits students as well as local residents.