By Nathan Stiff
With rusty chains, torn saddles and missing wheels, abandoned bicycles on bike racks around campus are more common than one might think.
UMD’s Department of Transportation Services (DOTS) eventually takes unclaimed or illegally parked bikes off of the racks, donating them to nonprofits that offer bikes and mechanical skills to communities in need.
According to DOTS sustainability coordinator Marta Woldu, bikes should not be left on non-residential bike racks for more than three days.
“Leaving your bike for multiple weeks at a rack is really just taking up space for someone else who would really like to use that to get to class,” Woldu said.
Student employees check bicycle racks every few weeks, looking for rusty chains, flat tires or missing parts — all signs that a bike has been left in place for some time. They tag the suspect bike with a warning, stating that it risks impoundment.
A DOTS van will eventually cut the lock and take the bike to a fenced-in storage lot at the bottom of the Regents Drive Garage, which Woldu colloquially refers to as “bike jail.” Here it remains until a student claims it or DOTS donates it.
State law requires that DOTS keeps any impounded property, including bikes, for a full year. In the meantime, the bike is listed on an abandoned bike database. Students can reclaim their bikes by paying a $35 impound fee.
“A large majority of the bikes don’t get picked up,” Woldu said. “In a given year, we’ll have 100 to 200 bikes just sitting in the cage — and probably less than a third, or maybe a fourth, actually get claimed.”
DOTS currently donates to Bikes for the World, a nonprofit that brings bikes and repair classes to communities in need around the world, as well as local shop Gearin’ Up Bicycles and the university’s 4-H Extension.
“[These groups] have a lot of different missions around just helping get bikes in the hands of people, and so we really try to work closely with them and help them do that so these bikes can not go to the landfill,” Woldu said.
All land-grant schools have an extension, an initiative meant to bring knowledge and service to the community outside of the university. UMD’s extension partners with 4-H, which teaches young people life skills through camps, clubs and other programs.
Gretchen Sumbrum leads the 4-H extension’s new bike clinic, a five-week course that will teach youths bike mechanic skills. DOTS donated eight bikes to the program, and Sumbrum hopes to continue the relationship in the future.
“It’s a trade, really,” Sumbrum said. “They could go to a career, or college, or bike shop.”
Gearin’ Up Bicycles is a nonprofit shop in northeast Washington, D.C., that refurbishes and recycles bikes. The shop also provides repairs and classes, and creates career pathways for local youths. According to the nonprofit’s executive director Sterling Stone, the shop has received hundreds of bikes from the university.
“We’ve been here for six years and had this relationship with UMD since close to the beginning,” Stone said.
Gearin’ Up receives donations from individuals, as well as from other college campuses. Overall, Stone said, about 40 percent of donated bikes can be refurbished and resold. The remaining 60 percent are stripped for parts.
“It’s a crapshoot, really,” Stone said. “Very rarely are they in good shape.”
Woldu encourages students who no longer want their bicycles to donate them to DOTS or to the RecWell bike shop.
“That helps us avoid the whole one-year holding period, and we can get that bike in the hands of folks who are looking to repair bikes and looking to refurbish bikes sooner,” Woldu said.