According to the Insight journal from the Florida Gulf Coast University, the Goal of pedestrian and Non-vehicular Circulation sub-element of the Master Plan of Florida Gulf Coast University is to strengthen the functional and aesthetic nature of pedestrian movement between and among the various of campus.

            Again, according to the Insight journal from the Florida Gulf Coast University, 85% of students and 86% of faculty/staff indicate they never ride a bike on campus. At the same time 61% of students and 53% of faculty suggested adding additional routes to improve the ability of students to walk, bike and skateboard around campus.

            Obviously, more than half of students and faculty think that the biking system on campus needs to be improved. Kathleen Crawford, the coordinator of Environmental Sustainability of the Environmental, Health and Safety Department of FGCU believes that the first thing to do is to improve the efficiency of bike racks on campus. Bike racks are placed inefficiently around campus. Some bike racks are overloaded, while some are never being used at all. Mrs. Crawford is going to reflect the problem to the Physical Plant about the inefficiency of bike racks. But first, she needs data.

            I am one of her volunteers. As I am her the first volunteer, I also have to do the planning parts for other volunteers. The first thing I did was to find all the bike racks locations on campus. I went around on campus to search for bike racks. However, I thought it would be more efficient if I just went to the distributer of bike racks: the Physical Plant. About one week later, I received a map with all the bike racks location on it. With it, I created a record system. Basically, it is a table with date, time and locations of bike racks. What the volunteers need to do is filled out the table with the number of bikes on the bike racks respect to the date and time.

            I also go out and count the bicycles on the bicycle racks by myself. As Kathleen Crawford said, the bike racks are distributed inefficiently. For example, there are two bike racks outside the Student Union building rarely being use. At the same time the one bike rack outside library is always full. Students cannot find a space for their bikes, so they just lock on the fences or trash cans outside the library. Same situation happens outside Academic Building Seven.

            I hope my data would give a little help to improve the bike rack situation. Relocating the bike racks can improve the bike racks efficiency, and at the same time it can also encourage students and faculties to use bicycle more.