As the cooling weather continues, many students will stubbornly carry on with their bike rides throughout NIU.

But with so many bikers out and about, and so little space to properly lock their bikes up on racks, many bikes are being hooked up to trees, benches and poles for safekeeping.

Some students have even seen there is no space on the closest tree trunk to secure their trusted two-wheeler. As a result, there have also been chains of bikes hooked up together.

But that’s what we’re good at, right? Innovation, rethinking and improvising. We’re plan B people when plan A falls through — or, in this case, runs out of space.

“Bicycles locked outside of the designated bicycle area will be seized by the NIU Campus Police,” read a Housing a Dining flier in one residence hall.

Well, that’s interesting.

According to the flier, locking up bikes to benches or handicap entrance rails rather than bike racks causes “a hazard” to students and is therefore against regulations. Violating this policy gives officers the right to confiscate students’ bikes.

“This rule is ridiculous,” said freshman nutrition major Malerie Meares. “They know there isn’t enough bike racks for all of us; they’re always full. I’m lucky if I even find a spot once a week.”

Although the bike policy does make sense to an extent, considering some placement of bikes can be hazardous to other students, many students depend too much on their bikes to give them up just because they can’t find a proper spot to lock them.

Having your bike taken away can be a scary thing to face. Although, I’m sure police don’t really enjoy taking away our bikes like we’ve done something terrible.

“We’re trying to make [this process] as smooth as possible,” said NIU Police Lt. Donald Rodman. “We give you guys a tag notifying you to move your bike from the place it’s at and you’ll have a week to remove it or we have the authorization to clip the lock and take it.”

Someone who gets a ticket or a confiscated bicycle can see an up-to-$50 fine. But it’s not students’ fault there’s no room to properly lock up bikes.

There just aren’t enough designated places for the mass amount of bicycles, especially around the residence halls.

Some of these two-wheelers have even been left over from last year. Warnings left on abandoned bikes explain campus police will remove them to make more space on the racks.

So after students have been complaining for more space for our bikes and after all the warnings and threatened confiscations of our dependable transportation, it’s time for more bike racks.

“It only seems like the logical thing to do for us to make more racks,” said freshman business major Octavio Renteria. “That’s kind of an obvious solution to do.”

The New Residence Hall is doing the right thing by adding more racks, but NIU should also let us lock up our bikes to poles and trees as long as they aren’t in the way of pedestrians or causing damage to university property.

A problem like this only needs one solution and compromise on both sides.