Since the implementation of the VeoRide Bike Sharing Program, students and citizens of DeKalb have had access to bicycles for leisurely use at the click of a button. Members of the community seem to be doing a strikingly poor job at expressing their gratitude for the program.

The Bike Sharing Program consists of downloading the VeoRide app, where users then scan the QR code on the red VeoRide bikes to activate them. Such a simple process, however, still proves too difficult because users seem to have a misconception about where to put the bikes once they are done using them.

The final step in the bike sharing process is to park the bikes at the nearest bike rack, according to the NIU Bike Sharing Program webpage. Apparently, this step has become optional among users who prefer to aimlessly ditch the bikes when they are done.

The Bike Sharing Program webpage via NIU Parking Services depicts a picturesque campus of students alongside neatly arranged VeoRide bicycles on their respective bike racks.

NIU, as a campus that knows how to put its bikes away nicely after using them, is merely a fantasy that is lives in posed photographs.

It doesn’t take long to notice the cluttered presence of VeoRide bikes making an eyesore all over DeKalb. Bikes are currently strewn across campus — blocking sidewalks, filling parking lots and even resting in the river outside of Cole Hall.

NIU Parking Services overlooks the bike sharing program, and declined to comment.

Perhaps an increase in available bike racks is in order. With a greater bike rack accessibility around DeKalb, the number of opportunities for users to end their rides in an area without a bike rack would certainly decrease.

“We’ve been able to add additional parking infrastructure to campuses that needed it,” VeoRide director of communications Linda Jackson said. “This [issue] is education for the user; reminding them of the process that bikes should be returned in or near a bike rack.”

The real shortage is in bike-user accountability. Negligent users who abandon bikes in inappropriate, random locations are not off the hook, regardless of the local presence of bike rack availability. It’s amazing how people who have made it all the way to a university prove to be lacking basic life skills, such as putting your toys away nicely once you are done with them, a lesson that gets taught in preschool.

NIU VeoRide representative, Kingston Smartt-Nalli said he is planning a Q&A event within the upcoming months to promote user education. Hopefully this event has a significant turnout because evidently, many students and DeKalbians alike are still unfamiliar with what exactly a bike rack is supposed to be used for.