UP ‘Bike Share’ gets a boost
STUDENT advocacy group “UP Bike Share,” established to aid and promote the growing bike-sharing community at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, has just received 40 bicycles to allow more students to get around campus via an environmentfriendly scheme.
The donation was made by DMCI Homes through a memorandum of agreement with the organization’s members, represented on both sides by company Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Customer Care Jan Venturanza and UP Bike Share President Miguel Laperal. Witnessing the agreement were UP Chancellor Dr. Michael Tan, UP Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs Nestor de Castro, Dean of College of Engineering Dr. Aura Matias, and UP Bike Share of-
“We are a proud partner of UP Bike Share. We share a common goal of providing urban solutions and, like them, we believe that people in the really make a positive difference in our society,” shared Venturanza.
organization that aims to help students get around the 493-hectare UP campus at the same time promote clean, reliable, and sustainable transportation through modern bike-sharing system. The group consists of 24 students from the colleges of Engineering, Fine Arts and Architecture who pooled their own resources to produce the initial 30 bikes which currently serves the students enrolled in UP Bike Share.
“In bike rental, only one person gets to use the bike for a certain period of time while in UP Bike Share, once the student leaves the bike to a building and goes to class, there will be other students in that building who can use the bike. That allows the Laperal explained.
The organization’s president added of four to seven riders or students in one bike per day. For 30 bicycles, we can say we get to help at least 150 students in a day, which is why we gratefully welcome these additional 40 bicycles.”
Besides developing the bikesharing community in the campus, UP Bike Share also plans to extend the system outside the university particularly in rural areas.