Bike Smart Day to be Held on April 24

April 23, 2007 -- Become more familiar with bicycling around Grounds at Bike Smart Day, featuring basic bicycle education, including tips on flat tire repair and basic maintenance, along with giveaways of useful bicycling paraphernalia.  The brand new "Bike Smart Map" will be on display, detailing all of the most useful and safest routes around the campus vicinity, including quieter routes versus more dangerous ones, areas of concern like busy intersections, locations of bike racks and bike lanes, as well all bus routes and stops for both University and city buses.

Bike Smart Day is sponsored by Green Grounds, a student organization that advocates for more environmentally sustainable practice and development at the University, working with groups like the Office of the University Architect, Facilities Management and other student organizations. The group is working with the University administration to install a green roof on Clemons library and a roof garden on the Clemons fourth floor terrace. They did a Bike Survey of 579 respondents among the U.Va. community. During fall 2005, they surveyed 4,700,000 square feet of nonresidential University buildings, identifying 26 percent of that space as lit and unoccupied, thus wasting an estimated 7.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity.  To follow up that survey, the group displayed on the Lawn an 8 x 8 x 8 foot black box to represent the coal wasted on lighting during one week.