2012 Request for Proposal: UST Campus Sustainability Fund
Submit completed proposal by 10/12/12 at 5:00 p.m. to Kris Wammer:
1. UST Takes a Nice Ride
$20,000
2. Primary Applicant:Paul Lorah - Department of Geography. .
3.Secondary Applicant Students in GEOG 331 Conservation Geography:
Malia Foster, Lisa Miller, Andrew Henke, Mitchell Schaps, Nick Yannarelly, Jay Kidd, Sonkaley Nelson, Martin Tow, Lauren Reuss, Nicole Elbert, Julie Rech, Phil Gebauer, Emily Jorgensen, Tou Lor.
4. Other proposal support:
See Appendix 1 for letters of support from:
Mitch Vars Director of Information Technology, Nice Ride
Matt Ghiloni President of BEAST (Bike Enthusiasts at Saint Thomas)
Vanessa Ryan Tommie Central
Tory Svoboda Academic Advising
5. Overview and purpose of the project:
This $20,000 grant proposal would fund the purchase of 666 annual Nice Ride subscriptions–250 would be distributed to incoming freshmen, the rest to other members of the UST community. Nice Ride has agreed to discount these subscriptions and provide data on how members of the UST community use their bike share system. Geography students will analyze usage data to track trends in campus bike use, estimate the total number of miles pedaled, and estimate carbon reductions resulting from decreased car use. Students have already started an advertising campaign to promote the Nice Ride system as a means of promoting urban sustainability, strengthening community, improving health and increasing student access to local businesses and recreational opportunities.
The project has three main goals:
1. Cut carbon emissions by encouraging members of the UST community to use the Nice Ride bike system instead of cars for short, local trips.
2. Improve the quality of life for UST students (and attract future students) by building community, promoting healthy lifestyles and increasing access to nearby recreation, shopping and entertainment.
3. Actively involve students in the creation and execution of this proposal, in marketing the Nice Ride system, in analyzing campus bike use, and in estimating reductions in carbon emissions.
What is Nice Ride?
While bike share systems are often associated with cities such as London, Paris, Barcelona and New York, the Nice Ride system is currently the second largest in the United States. It has 145 stations, over 1,300 bikes and recently passed the 500,000 ride milestone. Nice Ride’s mission is to “To enhance the quality of our urban life by providing a convenient, easy-to-use bike sharing program that will provide residents and visitors a healthy, fun, different way to get around town”. Their goal is to promote urban sustainability by limiting vehicular congestion, reducing carbon emissions, and providing opportunities for healthy exercise.
Purpose
The Campus Sustainability Fund contributes to our common good by supporting projects that achieve five common goals. We designed our project with these goals in mind.
- Enhancing the University’s educational mission
This proposal is an effort to directly engage students in promoting urban sustainability. It was designed by students in the GEOG 331 Conservation Geographycourse who wrote much of this proposal via a class wiki page. Student research conducted in support of this proposal has already been presented at a professional conference (see Appendix 2). If the proposal is funded, student researchers will create a GIS model to analyze data on bike use and calculate reductions in the university’s carbon footprint. Students are already actively promoting the Nice Ride station at UST.
- Actively involving students and faculty in projects that repair damage caused by our GHG emissions. Transportation, including commuting, isa major component of the University’s carbon footprint. This proposal is designed to make cycling a fun, viable alternative to driving for short, local trips. By encouraging the UST community to bike instead of drive, this proposal helps individuals directly limit their carbon footprint.This grant proposal would also further UST’s pursuit of urban sustainability and support the ACTC goal of creating sustainable urban communities.
- Supporting the vision, creativity and design capabilities of members of the UST community.To the professor’s surprise, students involved in this proposal decided to create an ad campaign promoting the Nice Ride system to the UST community.So far, students have produced TV ads to be aired in the Anderson Student Center, designed maps of bike tours that start at the UST Nice Ride station, and started a Nice Ride at UST Facebook page. The student’s vision for this project extends beyond carbon reductions; they see this proposal as an opportunity to strengthen campus community and make UST a more active, connected campus. Members of BEAST (Bike Enthusiasts at Saint Thomas) have already agreed to lead Nice Ride tours of businesses and parks surrounding campus to incoming freshmen (See email from Matt Ghiloni in Appendix 1).
- Increasing local economic development, habitat protection, watershed protection and community education.Local economic development is an important component of this project. One goal of this proposal is to increase student access to nearby businesses and to strengthen ties between the UST community and our neighbors. To accomplish this, students used data on street networks and Nice Ride stations to calculate travel times from the UST Nice Ride station. The result is a map displaying the locations of locally owned coffee shops, restaurants and ice cream stores within 5, 10 and 15 minute bike rides of campus.
- Linking UST to not only neighboring but also distant communities through our VISION trips and departmental service projects abroad. This proposal does not focus on VISION trips or service projects abroad. It does, however, link UST to neighboring communities in ways that increase quality of life for students. Prospective students are attracted to our superior facilities, beautiful grounds and new buildings. Our location in a (mostly) residential neighborhood, however, means that Nice Ride subscriptions will increase student access to shopping, dining and recreation, further increasing the quality of life at UST.
6. How the project will be implemented:
Who Gets Nice Ride subscriptions?
We propose to provide 666discounted Nice Ride subscriptionsto the UST community. Because one goal of the proposal is to change campus culture, 250subscriptions will be reserved for the next cohort of incoming freshmen. We feel freshmen are more likely to live on campus and less likely to have a car than other students. They have not yet developed the habit of driving to and from campus, and may be more likely to use the Nice Ride system than older students who already rely on cars. The remaining subscriptions (as well as any subscriptions not purchased by freshmen) will be made available for students, faculty and staff.
Subscription distribution and cost
Nice Ride subscription certificates will be distributed via Tommie Central on a first-come first-served basis(see email from Vanessa Ryan in Appendix 1). Academic Advising has also agreed to distribute certificates to incoming freshmen, as well as students who live near campus (see email from Tory Svoboda in appendix 1). The latter group is especially important, as student commuters were responsible for over 10,000 metric tons of eCO2 emissions in 2011.
These subscription certificates will not cover the full cost of the subscription - $10 would be paid by the student (or faculty or staff member). This $10 would be charged to the student’s credit card when they redeem the certificate on the Nice Ride Website.Why charge $10? We want to maximize carbon reductions by minimizing the possibility that subscriptions will go unused. We believe that people are more likely to value a pass they pay for and that the $10 charge is enough to discourage casual users without being too expensive for students.
Subscriptions last one year from the purchase date, so they do not need to be sold to members of the UST community all at once. Two hundred and fifty will be reserved for incoming freshmen and will be sold during summer 2013. The remaining 314 subscriptions will be made available to UST students, faculty and staff April 2013(the beginning of the Nice Ride Season).
7. Budget
As outlined above, we are requesting $20,000.
Annual Nice Ride subscriptions cost $65 ($55 for students), but Nice Ride has agreed to discount subscriptions to $40 if this proposal is funded (see letter from Mitch Vars in Appendix 1). To ensure that the subscriptions are used, we plan to charge $10.The $10 fee will reduce the cost of each pass to $30. As a result, the $20,000 requested in this UST Sustainability Grant proposal would pay Nice Ride for 666 annual subscriptions ($20,000/$30 = 666).
We believe the Nice Ride subscriptions will be in high demand, even without current student efforts to market Nice Ride at UST. If the proposal is funded, we will also work with Tommie Media, Academic Advising and others to promote it. If, however, we have overestimated the UST community’s interest in bike share, it is possible that some subscriptions will go unsold.If this is the case, the UST Sustainability Fund will not be charged for unsold subscriptions and funds will stay in the UST Sustainability Fund.
It is also possible that students will take certificates and then decide not to redeem them. If a certificate has not been redeemed within three months, it will be cancelled and UST will not be charged.
8. Include defined metrics for a clearly measurable outcome and a schedule of appropriate progress reports to the CSF through the duration of the project:Updates should be provided at approximately 6-month intervals.
The Nice Ride organization has agreed to provide the Department of Geography with data on the total number of trips and on total usage time for all subscriptions purchased with this proposal. This information will be analyzed by students in ENVR 151 Humans and the Environment and GEOG 322 Geographical Analysis. Data will not be provided on individuals or on individual bike use.
Using data on total UST ride duration and the total number of trips taken (along with rider surveys from the Nice Ride at UST Facebook page) students will calculate total miles traveled and then estimate consequent reductions in greenhouse emissions.
Updates on subscription sales would be made at each UST Sustainability Committee meeting. These updates would start in April 2013 when tickets go on sale and continue until all subscriptions have been sold.
Updates on Carbon Reductions would also be reported at each UST Sustainability Committee meeting and continue until one year after the last subscription is sold. A final report summarizing total carbon savings over the life of the project will be made at this time.
Other goals of this project are to build community, promote Nice Ride, and educate students on urban sustainability. Because of this,all updates will also be posted on the Nice Ride at UST Facebook page. The Facebook page will also be used to organize group rides, promote the grant and display future student research inspired by the project.
9. If your project will offset greenhouse gases and reduce the campus carbon footprint, describe thoroughly how this will happen:
By promoting the Nice Ride bike share program and providing deeply discounted yearly subscriptions, this project aims to make biking a viable and fun alternative to driving for many in the UST community.
We have reason to believe this could significantly lower the campus carbon footprint: last year faculty, staff and student commuting were responsible for more than 11,500 metric tons of eCO2 emissions – more than 20 percent of our net emissions.
10. Describe if and how students will be involved and/or the educational value to our community:
As detailed above, students are involved at every stage of this project, including:
*project design
*background research on the project’s viability
*writing this grant proposal via a class wiki
*analyzing data on bike use and calculating carbon reductions
*creating a Nice Ride at UST Facebook page
*creating marketing materials for the UST Nice Ride Station
*agreeing to lead Nice Ride tours from campus
*creating maps of Nice Ride tours from the UST station
11. Highlight innovations and the potential for the project to be scalable across our campuses:
The "ACTC is renewing its commitment to urban sustainability" . . . (by putting) our commitments into action through shared endeavors as an educational collaborative grounded in the tradition of a liberal arts education."
Nice Ride Stations are located near most ACTC schools (Saint Catherine's is an exception). We feel that UST can take a leadership role in promoting the Nice Ride system for all ACTC members and are willing to work with Nice Ride to encourage other ACTC schools to follow our lead. One possibility: working to acquire Nice Ride subscriptions for students commuting between campuses.
12. If applicable, include lifecycle costs, possible investment payback schedules and potential long-term savings:None expected.
Appendix 1 - Emails and Letters of support
Mitch Vars Director of Information Technology, Nice Ride
Tory SvobodaAcademic Advising
Vanessa Ryan Tommie Central
Matt Ghiloni President of BEAST (Bike Enthusiasts at Saint Thomas)
Appendix 2
Poster presented by students at the Healthy Minnesota: Communities in Action Conference, Friday, September 28, 2012, Ramada Mall of America.
UST Takes a Nice Ride: Promoting Health, Building Community and Cutting Carbon
Dept. of Geography - University of St. Thomas
Students at the University of Saint Thomas are collaborating with the Nice Ride bike share program to make cycling an integral part of a healthy campus culture. Nice Ride is improving the quality of urban life by making cycling convenient, fun and easy. Students used a geographic information system to map travel times, the locations of bike stations and outdoor recreational opportunities to model how increased use of the Nice Ride system will lead to a reduction of carbon emissions, strengthened community relations and a wide array of health benefits.
UST Students discussing their Nice Ride Project with the Surgeon General of the United States. (She approves.)