Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

On Thursday, everyone who picked up a copy of the Wildcat found out the number of bike thefts on campus has increased by almost 60 percent from last year, according to UAPD's annual campus safety and security report. Already this year there have been 524 reported thefts, with three months still to go in 2003.

With an increase this large, students have to ask if it's worth the risk to ride to campus anymore. They either have to spend their hard-earned money on a state-of-the-art lock the CIA would be envious of or risk coming out of class only to find a lone wheel masquerading as their bike.

On a campus that is "ranked as one of the top five in the nation when it comes to students using bicycles," according to Gary Thomson, associate director of Parking and Transportation Services, how do we reverse this troubling trend?

There are a variety of opinions on how to accomplish this goal, from educating students to use better locks to nearly disassembling your entire bike and hauling it to class. After all, we are biker-friendly here at the UA.

I have a much easier solution: Eliminate the sheer amount of bikes we have on campus.

Take away bikes, you say? Surely not!

Jason Poreda Columnist

Right now our campus is overflowing as it is; the last thing we need is thousands of bikes tearing up the walkways. I know everyone has a story of an out-of-control biker nailing an unsuspecting pedestrian on his or her way to class, and cutting back on the amount of bikes we have traversing campus would certainly help this problem as well as leaving fewer bikes to steal. I suggest this because there is a perfect population for this cutback: the residence halls.

I lived on campus for three years and it always amazed me how many people who live on campus own bikes. Take a walk by any residence hall and you see an armada of bikes parked in front of it.

I am guilty of this, too. One of the first things I did when I moved in freshman year was take a trip to the bike shop. I never really asked my dad why; it just seemed like the thing to do.

I quickly realized, however, that riding around campus was more of a headache than a convenience. After maneuvering around all those dumb pedestrians, I had to find a spot to park and wrestle with my shiny new U-lock before finally going to class. After about a week of that, I gave up on the bike and became a walker, never looking back.

I found that no matter what residence hall you live in, you're no more than a 10-minute walk from any building on campus. It's faster to walk in many cases. So for the rest of the year and for the next two years after that, my bike spent more time sitting in the sun than helping me around campus, ripe for the taking.

That is the story for most students living on campus who own bikes, with the exception of a few. As a result, all of those bikes sit there waiting to be picked off. It was only a matter of time before a rise in bike theft happened. If somebody wants those bikes, there is little to stop them. Hell, I forgot where my bike was half the time. Look back at the Wildcat on Thursday; the picture that ran with the story showcased a freshman resident in Kaibab-Huachuca holding the last remaining tire of her bike. For any aspiring bike thief, the residence halls are like a stop-and-steal.

In order to fix the bike theft problem, we need to address the problem of all of the unnecessary bikes just sitting out in the open all day and all night. If we really want to fix this problem, we need to eliminate those bikes at a high risk to be taken. As long as these bikes are still collecting dust, we will have a theft problem here at the UA.

Jason Poreda is a political science and communication senior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu