Several bike rental programs currently exist at UNM, and more may be on the way.
UNM Recreation Services’ rental program allows students to rent bikes, U-locks and helmets for $40 per week or $10 per day.
UNM UNM“When I tried to find a local bike rental program, I couldn’t find one,” he said. “The closest place to go if you wanted to rent a bike was Taos. The response is quite amazing, but we have to do constant promotions to make people aware there are bikes for rent.”
Student Matthew Wilder, along with his business partner Richard Rivas, developed LoboBike, different than Lobo Bikes, which repairs and recycles bikes that would have been thrown away.
“I want to recycle bikes,“ Wilder said. “There are a lot of bikes going through the recycling center that need homes, kind of like puppies, and I want to give them a good home. I’d rather them be recycled and ridden rather than just end up in an arroyo or landfill.”
Wilder said another goal of LoboBike is to promote alternative transportation across campus. He advertises his program to students in UNM’s sustainability studies program.
“There’s about a dozen bikes every month that come through to give away, so I can’t advertise this too loudly to everyone,” he said. “I’m mainly targeting the sustainability studies classes right now.”
Wilder said he hopes to work with PATS to make his LoboBike program a permanent fixture on campus.
He said over the last semester and a half, about 25 students have gotten a bike from the program.
ASUNM president Jaymie Roybal is also trying to get a bike rental program going. She said she hopes to create a similar model to one she saw while studying in England.
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“We’re working with Parking and Transportation right now to see where we want these bikes, and how many of them, how much it’s going to cost, and how safe it is,” she said. “We’re still in the very early stages, but we’re working on pulling in some sponsors to help fund the initial costs of the program and figure out the recurring costs to keep it on campus for the future.”
Roybal said the idea involves bike kiosks located throughout north, central and south campus. Students would swipe their Lobo Cards or their credit cards and rent the bikes for an as-yet undetermined period of time, she said.
“My hope is to charge students no more than $1 or $2,” Roybal said. “But those are all things to be determined.”
Ortiz said students could benefit from a kiosk-based system, but there are factors that need to be taken into consideration.
“A really conscious study has to be put in place as to what are the demographics, the availability and access to maintenance,” he said. “How are they going to budget for that?”
