For many college students, a bike is more than just transportation; it’s an essential part of daily life. On a campus as crowded and with as little parking as University of Arizona has, biking is a viable, eco-friendly option for students, enabling them to travel to and from campus safely and effectively. 

Bikes are a convenient and speedy means of transportation, enabling students to travel back and forth between classes much faster than walking, something very helpful when time is of the essence moving to get to classes across campus. Biking also offers physical health benefits and in crowded and condensed places, it is actually much faster than dealing with all the hang ups that come with driving a car. Biking is also a cheaper way to travel; there are no gas or maintenance costs like with a car. Unfortunately, the benefits of biking around campus are lost pretty quickly when your bikes get repeatedly stolen.

Only around 8,000 UA students live on campus. This means the remaining nearly 43,000 main campus students have to find alternate ways to get on campus. Parking on campus is nearly impossible due to limited spots — and the expensive nature of purchasing a parking pass — meaning many students must rely on the Sun Link, SunTran or bikes to get to campus.

Since the majority of UA students live off campus, alternative means of transportation to walking are actually essential for many of us. 

Fortunately, Tucson is generally a very bikeable city. In fact, BizTucson reports that our “Dirty T” has been named the number two bike friendliest city in the U.S. by Livability.com. However, this friendliness does not always extend to the UA; due to rampant theft on campus, even having an expensive lock guarantees nothing for your precious bike’s safety. 

While the UA has bike lockers on campus, they are too sparsely located, inconvenient and expensive for the sheer volume of bike users on campus. The Bike Valet is another option, but there is only one location and it is only open until 6pm. 

In an attempt to combat rising thefts, the University of Arizona Police Department and the Tucson Police partnered to create a bait bike program in which bikes with trackers implanted in them are placed at locations around campus in an attempt to catch thieves in the act and ultimately discourage further thefts on campus. 

Overall, this program doesn’t actually do much. In the grand scheme of things, the threat of accidentally stealing a bait bike is not going to be effective in preventing thefts. If someone wants to steal a bike, they will regardless. This energy, while admirable, should be channeled into solving the actual problem — making campus a safer place for bikes. Some possible solutions for UA are extending the Bike Valet hours or offering more enclosed spaces near buildings around campus. 

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Kirsten Thomas is a student at the University of Arizona. She loves personal finance and rock climbing.