Campuses good for biking

College Search & Lists
1

This is an offshoot of a discussion of campuses where you do not need a car.

I think there are many different possible interpretations of this concept, so I suggest people just make clear what they have in mind.

In this case, I was personally discussing biking campuses as seen through the vision of my S24, and I think for him it is not so serious as things like competitive teams, racing tracks, highly technical mountain trails, or so on. His vision is more practical (just getting around campus or perhaps nearby commercial areas) and recreational (just taking rides somewhere nice). I also note he is not looking for the sort of large public university (or larger private university) campus where a bike may be a near-necessity, more where it could be a convenience on a nice day.

With that caveat in mind, of the ones we visited, I think the ones that stood out most clearly were William & Mary, Carleton, and WUSTL.

W&M and Carleton both have relatively spacious, but not too spread out, developed parts of their campuses, and then a lot of relatively undeveloped areas tooā€“Carletonā€™s are mainly in their Arboretum:

. . . and W&M has it kind of woven through campus and then around the lake in College Woods:

https://www.trailforks.com/region/college-woods-22916/

Both then also have adjacent medium-density commercial areas.

WUSTL also has a relatively spacious developed main campus (Danforth), with a nice offshoot for underclass students known as the South 40, and then a truly world-class urban park across the street, Forest Park:

Some honorable mentions:

Brown: WITHDRAWN (see more informed comment below).

Swarthmore, another relatively spacious main campus with a nice wooded area as well.

Of course this is an incredibly small sampling. He actually applied to three Northeast colleges we did not visit that might nonetheless be promising based on what we learned during visits elsewhere, and we didnā€™t look at colleges in like Colorado or on the West Coast, where of course biking is very common.

I will finally leave you with this map of William & Mary, because I think it basically captures the very specific campus/biking vibe my S24 is looking for (including a little biker actually on the map):

984Ɨ613 919 KB

1 Like
2

Where did you find this map? I might need it!

3

Of course thereā€™s different levels of bike ability - on campus, in town, nearby mountain biking.

Lots of lists out there.

So my daughters school (Charleston)on one which I donā€™t get. Uneven sidewalks due to bricks and crowded, heavy trafficā€™s streets. But likely lots of good ideas in here.

2 Likes
4

To me ā€œgood for bikingā€ and ā€œgood for getting around without a carā€ are often quite different. For getting around without a car I would tend to look for a small school (perhaps a liberal arts college). Biking might work on a larger campus, especially if the campus is flat and has good weather.

The Stanford campus is a good one for biking. It is flat and large enough that you might want a bike. I was there in a drought, so it did not rain even one single drop while I was there which helped a LOT (particularly after my car died and got towed away). It does (or at least did) have trees that drop thorns and requires tougher inner tubes, but the local bike shops can help you with this. I also recall there being bike lanes and places to lock up your bike in the area (including in nearby downtown Palo Alto). It has been a long time since I studied there and probably ten years since I even visited.

I agree about WUSTL. I only visited once but the campus did seem to be a good size for biking. I was not there in the winter and have no idea whether the weather will get in the way.

The University of British Columbia also has a very large campus, where a bicycle could be useful. Depending upon where you go, it can either be quite flat, or you can run into hills that could be quite a challenge. From UBC to downtown Vancouver you would probably be better off to take a bus (both the distance and one particular large hill might discourage biking). Constant rain throughout the winter however will also discourage biking.

I think that a lot of universities have campuses which will be bike friendly in good weather. Traffic, snow, and rain might be the three things that are likely to get in the way.

Bike thefts might be countered by the choice of bicycle. I still have a 1964 Peugeot ten-speed which might be the ideal bicycle for cities, partly because a botched paint job plus years of use have left it as absolutely hideous, but still fully functional. Once on a trip to Amsterdam I heard of a small company with a very strange function. They take a brand new bicycle, and for a small fee completely botch the paint job to make it look hideous and not worth stealing ā€“ a useful quality to have in Amsterdam. Something similar might be useful in some American cities.

Mountain biking is a completely different thing that I know nothing about.

3 Likes
5

When our S moved in to his dorm at Stanford, he swore up and down that he was not getting a bike to get to/from classes. That lasted exactly one quarter. The number of bikes on that campus is enormous.

2 Likes
6

Most students still get around the Stanford campus by regular bike, although now some ride e-bikes, skateboards, electric skateboards and scooters. My junior daughter brought my old bike when she moved in freshman year and still rides it daily, even though she now has a car on campus. She used to bike to Trader Joeā€™s to the nearby shopping center for groceries as well as other off campus locations but I think now prefers to drive. She certainly likes having a car to get off campus to Half Moon Bay or north to Muir Woods for hiking, etc. A friendā€™s daughter attends UC Davis and also bikes everywhere.

4 Likes
7

Lots of students use bikes around Northwestern - itā€™s totally flat so easy riding, lots of racks to lock up, bike shares, designated bike lanes into town, and a path along the lake for leisure rides.

5 Likes
8

University of California Santa Barbara- they have an extensive bike path system. Everybody bikes around that place. I know I did, way back when I attended.

4 Likes
9

+1 for Stanford (and probably many of the California campuses) being both bike friendly and bordering on bike-essential. They have a reliably active collegiate club cycling team, an on-campus bike shop, and a thoughtfully designed bike network. The campus, as noted, is huge, and walking to town takes longer than it would at, say, Princeton or Dukeā€™s East Campus (to name two other places with which Iā€™m quite familiar). So having a bike or scooter is actually important. Itā€™s also flat and has some of the best year-round weather (rarely if ever below 40 or over 90 outside, and sunny for months at a time.)

The communities around Stanford have been making efforts to strengthen their bicycle networks, which means that getting to off-campus locations by bike isnā€™t as fraught/sketchy as it might be in some other communities (Iā€™m looking at you, Durham).

Fun fact about Stanford: back in the 70s, they realized that they couldnā€™t expand parking indefinitely without running into issues with the surrounding cities/counties (e.g. when they apply for an updated General Use Permit). So they started charging for student/employee/visitor parking and used the proceeds to invest in a free shuttle system, abundant bike/ped infrastructure, and transit passes for more distant employees (many/most Stanford employees canā€™t afford to live w/in biking distance of campus). I think a lot of universities have followed suit but Stanford was one of the innovators on this front. When I worked there I actually got paid to bike to work.

Davis usually shows up at or near the top of most lists for similar reasons (and there a lot of students live off-campus and need bikes to get around). They also have a top-notch cycling team.

Rhodes, as I noted in a separate thread, didnā€™t seem to have as strong a biking culture. The campus itself is pretty compact so getting around on foot is straightforward. Most students live on campus; frats are right there, too. And they offer free parking and seemingly no restrictions on bringing a car to campus.

Final thought: Iā€™m not so sure about those League of American Bicyclists rankings ā€“ I see plenty of communities that make the list (possibly by virtue of having rail trails and mandating bike racks or something) but donā€™t have functional complete streets networks like, say, Davis. For folks who care about this stuff, I recommend checking out the community surrounding campus on Google maps, using the ā€œBikingā€ layer. Itā€™s not perfectly accurate but itā€™s pretty darn good.

3 Likes
10

Google images originally. The origin is a blog by the artist, who previously worked in their admissions and created this (extremely appealing) map:

2 Likes
11

Iā€™ve seen Stanford on many lists of top biking campuses. I do think for my S24, it would probably be more in the less desirable ā€œbecause you need to,ā€ versus the ā€œbecause you want toā€ category. But then again it is in California, so donā€™t you always also want to?

12

I used to always want to. Then midlife made me lazy. I try to remember what it was like to have to bike to work in Boston winters (those slush-filled potholes!) and remind myself of how good I truly have it.

4 Likes
13

After getting used to biking our S definitely enjoyed it. Finding shortcuts and scenic routes became a hobby.

2 Likes
14

I never saw so many bikes as I did at UCSB parked around the dorms. Well, maybe in China

4 Likes
15

We were given some stickers at Day for Admitted Students. Thinking those were by the same artist.

1 Like
16

I know you werenā€™t looking for large schools, but Colorado State is one of the most bike-friendly schools in one of the most bike-friendly city/towns.

Orientation includes bike safety tours, a biking tour of town, free helmets, locks and bike registration. They also teach you how to board the city and campus bus with your bike. There are bike racks, bike storage and repair spots throughout campus. There is a bike shop on campus that will not only fix your bike, but teach you how to fix it and perform regular maintenance.

The entire campus and the areas students tend to live in and visit all have bikability scores of 100 and Fort Collins is a Platinum Rated Bicycle Friendly Community.

Not only can you bike to stores, restaurants and services, but you can also bike to beautiful recreational areas like Horsetooth Reservoir.

When we were on campus and I got a birdā€™s eye view from a third floor window, I remarked that it looked like Copenhagen.

6 Likes
17

I didnā€™t intend this conversation to be restricted to any one sense of good for biking! As long as you are clear about why you are nominating a college (as you were), I think that is potentially going to very useful to somebody.

18

Based on personal experience, I would not include Brown on the list of particularly bike friendly places. It is on a very steep hill, so the more interesting destinations downtown are tough to get to by bike. (There is even a special tunnel for the city bus because it canā€™t navigate the very steep streets that connect College Hill with downtown.) One could certainly go on a recreational bike ride around some of the residential neighborhoods near Brown but that does not quite qualify as beautiful recreational biking, in my mind.

The other issue is that Providence has a fair bit of crime so you would need a very good lock to secure your bike.

I donā€˜t recall anyone getting around by bike when I was there, even though we were poor grad students and many of us did not have cars.

19

The League of American Bicyclists ā€œBike Friendly Campusā€ list, referenced above, can be found on their website:
[University | League of American Bicyclists (bikeleague.org)](University | League of American Bicyclists

There are just more than 200 campuses on this list, divided into levels. Stanford is indeed one of the 9 ā€œPlatinumā€ level campuses (as are Colorado State, UCSB, UCI, UCD, Portland State, Boise State, Wisconsin-Madison, and Minnesota). Dickinson is the only LAC at Gold Level (none at Platinum level).

1 Like
20

As mentioned above, UC Davis is a particularly bike-oriented campus. Itā€™s a much-emphasized talking point on the tours, that there are more bikes on campus than students. (We did not see any riderless bikes rolling around, however, lol.)

My daughter never got particularly comfortable on a bike when she was younger, and initially didnā€™t take a bike to college at Scripps, but once she started taking classes on the other Claremont campuses, she decided she wanted one, and she ended up biking quite a bit in her last year on campus before Covid put an end to her residential experience.

Stanford is indeed bike-friendly, perhaps more so than pedestrian-friendly. One of my daughtersā€™ friends who went there got hit by a bike in her first few weeks on campus!

3 Likes