Power Points often cloak a mediocre presentation with stylish appeal. But while most class projects are made on a whim and soon forgotten, sophomore Lexi Anderson invested time in an eco-friendly project that would transcend the common impracticality of environmental proposals. For Anderson, a University biking initiative is a theory ready to become a reality.

Anderson, a psychology major from Duluth, has designed a community program in which the University would own several thousand bicycles, available to students at anytime. A student could rent a bike from a specific “Dawgbike” rack and return it to one of the 67 designated racks on campus within a day.

“These bikes are intended for a kid who missed a bus and is late for class or needs to run an errand where the busses don’t go,” Anderson said. The University would also provide self-locking mechanisms to prevent theft.

Anderson said the program would cost the University approximately $30,000 to $40,000 but would yield a return of over $60,000.

She has taken her idea to the Go Green Alliance and the Sustainability Committee, which promotes environmentally friendly ideas. Her final tasks are to gather more support and take her idea to the Transportation Head.

“Honestly, I don’t know why they would not accept her idea. It makes both physical and environmental sense in my opinion, and it will contribute to the sustainability image for the University of Georgia,” said Susan Varlamoff, a member of the Sustainability committee.

When visiting Barcelona, Spain two summers ago, Anderson noticed the city’s dependence on bicycles for daily travel. She returned to college in the United States and began working on an Aesthetics Landscape project to promote health and discover ways of reducing the carbon footprint.

Mississippi State and Emory are the only two Southern universities to implement a bicycle initiative, but Anderson said UGA would provide a bike rental service at a higher and more efficient standard than those that already exist.

“At Emory it’s your responsibility. Their system doesn’t have a great deal of accountability. But here, the University would have liability in maintaining the bicycles.”

You would just check the bike in and mark it as damaged [on an electronic lock] and it would send the message to the hub that would maintain the bikes. The University would take it, repair it, and put it back into service.”

Anderson searched for flaws in the system before it could come into greater scrutiny. “For all of the kinks we came up with the most simplistic or the most efficient way to solve everything. For instance, you’d swipe your ID card to check out a bike, so that we know that only University students and faculty are using the system. That bike then has a serial number that is registered to you. The University can charge your student account for the cost of the bike,” Anderson said.

The cost of the program for students could be implemented several ways. Anderson’s first preference is to put an extra $2 on everyone’s transportation fee. “Who isn’t willing to pay $2 for unlimited use of unlimited numbers of bikes on campus?” she said. A back-up plan is to charge participants a $20 per semester subscription fee. For non-subscribers, $1 would be charged per rental. Students will be fined extra for not returning the bike within the allotted rental time of 24 hours.

In an innovative approach to gaining support, Anderson has asked local business to sponsor the bikes. These companies would buy advertisement space displayed from a banner on each bike. “It’s local advertising with unprecedented exposure on campus,” she said. Another creative attempt to expand the effectiveness of the initiative is to expand the system off campus. “I’m trying to contact local business such as Wal-Mart and Kroger to try to get business owners to put the Dawg Bike racks outside their stores as well,” said Anderson. “Then, a student could potentially drop their bike off at Kroger, do their shopping, and the bike would never be in danger of being stolen.”

Another perk of the initiative includes annual relay races, in which teams with the most logged distance for a certain day could win a prize. “Everyone’s response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Anderson said. “If we get all the approvals we need this semester, and actually start setting up the program next semester, it could start being pitched to incoming students as early as orientation next year.”