The University is celebrating LSU Bike Month throughout November in partnership with Bike Baton Rouge to promote sustainability and increase the number of bike riders on campus.
Campus Sustainability Manager Sarah Temple said the Office of Sustainability hopes the month-long event will encourage the community to get moving and educate them on resources available on campus.
“We have some students, faculty and staff that ride their bikes to and from campus everyday,” Temple said. “So, we wanted to have an LSU Bike Month not only to bring about awareness to alternative transportation and bicycle routes on campus, but also to incentivize people to ride their bikes.”
Some of the events throughout the month include a bike sale and auction on Nov. 15 several “Bike Talk” classes and an ongoing bike miles challenge on social media.
“One of the main things we’re doing for the whole month is the bike miles challenge,” Temple said. “We’re having people post anytime they do a bike ride on campus and we’re asking them to post a rough estimation miles on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with #LSUBikeMonth.”
Temple said at the end of the month, the Office of Sustainability will give away prizes for the most miles and most number of trips. Another event during LSU Bike Month is the Photo Scavenger Hunt from Nov. 13 to 17. 
“On that Monday, we’re going to be publishing a list of everywhere we’re going to be asking people to go on their bikes and take a photo,” Temple said. “Anyone who completes the list will get some kind of prize.”
The main partner of the University on the LSU Bike Month is Bike Baton Rouge. On Nov. 12, they will host the annual “Cranksgiving”
volunteer day.
The event is hosted at City-Brooks Community Park and challenges bikers to collect five common grocery items from designated stores as quickly as possible. The collected goods will be delivered to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank Awards will be given for fastest time, as well as biggest and smallest spender.
Starting this spring, the campus will see the advent of the Baton Rouge BikeShare program.
“We’re hoping that in the spring around March or April that the Baton Rouge BikeShare program will be up and running,” Temple said. “The first phase of the program involves spots at LSU so we’ll have bike share on campus.”
Temple said the Student Sustainability Fund will make the bike share program less expensive for students to participate.
Last year, the University was given the designation of a “Silver Bicycle Friendly University” by the League of American Bicyclists. The University is one of only 164 colleges and universities in the United States to receive the designation.
Temple said transportation on campus has become a sustainability issue in the last few years.
“We have a campus-wide committee on sustainability who’ve been looking at
sustainability issues for the University as a part of that we’ve done a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for campus,” Temple said. “We have actual data to show that transportation is a sustainability issue. The largest emitter of greenhouse gasses campus wide is transportation.”
Temple said the goal of LSU Bike Month is to get people on campus more familiar with the ample resources the University has to offer.
“We want to do what we can to get more cars off the road and get people using bicycles where we can,” Temple said.

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Chunfeng Lu

Bike usage increases on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017, on campus.