It shouldn't come as a surprise to many of you who like to cycle but bicycle parking sucks. They are the afterthought of urban design, something you add after all the important things have been considered. They are the parsley garnish on your plate, the very last thing you toss in there in the hopes it will make you look fancy. But it doesn't have to be this way. The Office of Campus Sustainability at uOttawa has just completed a full annual assessment of the bike parking spaces on campus and the results are... well they are pretty awesome. This year, an audit was conducted to determine the state of the bike racks on campus. The assessment included the number of spaces available, the proximity to a major building entrance, if they were covered, and the ease of access. These criteria were selected as measures of how attractive and effective the bike racks are to users. The report revealed that there are 58 distinct parking locations on campus, with approxima...

Eight months ago the Office of Campus Sustainability and the SFUO Bike Coop were approached by a student named Isabel. She had seen these cool things on the internet called Fixtations . I have to admit they are pretty nifty little inventions. Essentially a Fixtation is an outdoor bike stand with tools attached. The first thing that popped into my mind was AWESOME! Do you know exactly how many times I have had a little problem with my bike and all I needed was a place to look it over, maybe adjust a spoke, or even inflate a tire? Well me neither but I can tell you it is lots. It took all of about 2 minutes to convince Seamus and I that these Fixtations should be on the campus. We struck a deal, if the Bike Coop purchased the Fixations, the University would install them and put signs on them. I kind of get the impression that Isabel was a little taken aback by how quickly we agreed to the whole project. She asked if we needed some kind of report or justification. Seamus and I ...

Wow, things are starting to get really busy... I might even venture to say ridiculously busy. Nope, maybe we are quite there yet, but we are close. My boss predicted that 2010 would be the year of sustainability and that we would become so busy we wouldn't have time to think as we got closer and closer to the tipping point. That being said, I suppose it didn't come as a surprise when I was asked to sit in on a planning meeting for the new Student Center. For those of you not in the know, the University of Ottawa and th Student Federation have been trying to negotiate a new University Center for years. The original Jock Turcot building was designed for a campus of about 15,000 to 17,000 students and I think that we are a little beyond that right now. So recently Physical Resources Services (PRS) and the SFUO have gotten together to finally design a new center. Just as an aside I wanted to mention the whole University Center vs. Student Center thing. The new center that is planne...