Time is running out for students who left a bicycle behind on campus during the 2022 spring semester.
On June 27, Residence Life and Housing sent all spring residents an email that said, beginning July 8, “University Police will begin confiscating bikes that were left behind and place them into storage. At the end of 90 days the bicycles will be disposed of.”
“That gives you three months to come here to University Police and make a claim on the bike so we can get it back to you,” Scott Swayze, assistant chief of University Police, said. If a student thinks they may have left their bicycle on campus in the spring, they can go to University Police any time in September to claim their bike.
A total of 27 bikes were left on campus in the spring, mostly in front of dorm buildings, Swayze said.
In the weeks following the Residence Life and Housing email, officers go out and collect the left-behind bikes around campus.
“When we find a bike that’s left on a bike rack, we usually look at it to be sure that… it’s not currently being used, Swayze said. Officers also look to see if it has “been ridden that day.” University Police will look for something like rust on the chain as an indicator a bike was left behind. After the bicycles are collected, they go into storage in Cayuga Hall until the deadline at the end of September.
Once October begins, University Police checks “in with… the Sustainability Office, and we allow them to recycle the bikes for use on campus by other students,” Swayze said. The Sustainability Office will fix the bikes, if necessary, and then let students use them as a part of a ride share on campus.
According to the Sustainability Office’s website, the BikeShare program encourages sustainable transportation on campus.
Any bikes in working condition that the Sustainability Office could not use are donated to the C.N.Y. Bicycle Giveaway Foundation, Swayze said. The organization, located in Syracuse, fixes the bikes and will also reuse the parts of bicycles that may not be in working condition. Anything extra the organization does not use is recycled.
Over the past 20 years, the C.N.Y. Bicycle Giveaway Foundation has “[supplied] families with the opportunity to enjoy bike ownership,” according to its website. The foundation, which became an official charity in 2007, collects bikes and gives them away to those in need the Saturday before Christmas.
Anyone trying to find their left-behind bicycle should go to University Police before Oct. 1. University Police is “open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” Swayze said. It is on the west side of Oswego’s campus on the main floor of Pathfinder Hall.
Photo via Abigail Connolly
