Bike Traffic - Vol 11 Issue 3

Vol. 11 Issue 3

Field Museum offers staff bike sharing

By Aimee Toren

The Field Museum launched its innovative Shared Bike Program in March, continuing to build upon its green reputation.

Two Field Museum employees tak advantage of its new shared bike program.

The Shared Bike Program provides Field Museum employees with communal bicycles. The bicycles are available for personal or business use, whether to attend meetings, run errands, or go out for lunch.

The program has three bicycles, which any employee may use during daylight hours until November.
More bicycles could be added as demand increases. The program is already getting a warm response from employees.

Chicagoland Bicycle Federation member Elizabeth Beckman was the first employee to use the program. “This new bike program is really nice... I use it once a week or more to pick up samples, bike to a convention at the Merchandise Mart, and [it’s] great to ride down the lakefront.”

The bicycle sharing initiative arose from exhibitions designer Robert Weiglein’s idea to allow employees to easily travel outside the relatively secluded Museum campus.

The Shared Bike Program compliments other pioneering efforts to encourage and support bicycle commuting at the Field Museum, including providing bike parking facilities and showers.

And it’s paying off. Currently over 100 of the Museum’s approximately 575 full-time employees regularly commute by bicycle.

For two years running, the Field Museum has won the Bicycle Commuter Challenge in its category, achieving 11.58 percent participation last year.

The Shared Bike Program is an ideal way to encourage more people to bike, increasing employee health and morale and reducing the Museum’s expenses for taxis, parking and messenger services.

Greg Borzo, science writer for the museum, sees the possibilities the program can open up in the future. “The streets will become friendlier for bikes as there are more bikes out there,” he said.

Aimee Toren is a Bike Traffic contributor.