Let's ride!
Thanks to the efforts of some University of St. Thomas geography students, members of the St. Thomas community can get a nice deal on an annual pass for the NiceRide bike-sharing program.
More than 1,500 NiceRide bicycles are located at 170 stations in the Twin Cities, including four on or adjacent to the St. Thomas campus in St. Paul.
Mitchell Schaps was one of the geography students who helped develop the NiceRide bicycle discount program for the St. Thomas campus.
An annual pass to the NiceRide program is $65, but St. Thomas students, staff and faculty receive a $55 discount.
The annual pass allows you to take a bike when you want one, and return it to any station in the system when you are done riding. Owned and operated by a nonprofit organization, NiceRide is the second-largest bike-sharing system in the United States and recently passed the half-million-ride milestone.
Coupons for the discounted annual NiceRide subscriptions are available at TommieCentral, the information desk located on the first floor of Anderson Student Center. For more information about how NiceRide works, click here. If you are on Facebook, you can visit the Nice Ride at UST page.
The coupons will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. The passes are good for one year from the date of purchase.
To see a map of the NiceRide stations in the Twin Cities, click here.
On St. Thomas’ St. Paul campus, you’ll find the NiceRide stations:
- at Grand and Cretin avenues, just outside the east entrance to the Anderson Parking Facility;
- on the east side of Cleveland Avenue just north of Laurel Avenue (across the street from the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas);
- on the walkway between Anderson Student Center and O’Shaughnessy Stadium;
- 0n Mississippi River Boulevard near the monument at the end of Summit Avenue.
Half a dozen NiceRide stations are located along Grand Avenue. You’ll also find them at St. Catherine University and in Highland Village.
Half a dozen NiceRide stations also are located within a few blocks of St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus. The two closest are on Hennepin Avenue between 10th and 11th streets, and on 10th Street between the Nicollet Mall and Marquette Avenue.
Four NiceRide stations are located on the university's St. Paul campus, and several are within a few blocks of the Minneapolis campus.
The grant to fund the NiceRide program at St. Thomas was written by students in Dr. Paul Lorah’s Conservation Geography class. They are: Malia Foster, Lisa Miller, Andrew Henke, Mitchell Schaps, Nick Yannarelly, Jay Kidd, Sonkaley Nelson, Martin Tow, Lauren Reuss, Nicole Elbert, Julie Rech, Phil Gebauer, Emily Jorgensen and Tou Lor.
The $20,000 grant is funded by St. Thomas’ Campus Sustainability Fund, which supports the university’s commitment to become climate neutral by 2035 as outlined by the UST Climate Action Plan.
In addition to providing more than 600 discounted NiceRide subscriptions, the project has an educational component: Students will analyze how members of the St. Thomas community use the NiceRide system and then estimate reductions in carbon emissions that may result from using bicycles rather than cars.
