Athens, Ga – The University of Georgia bus system is one of the most congested in the nation. Pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist traffic make trips throughout campus take longer than expected.

Unibikes is a new service dedicated to finding the solution. Grady Newsource Reporter Didi Abdulnabi spoke with members of the program on how it plans to ease traffic on campus.

“So basically it’s a bike sharing system that we want to implement here on the UGA campus to kind of ease the congestion, specifically on the Oribit bus when you get on Tate,” says Unibikes co-founder Pedrum Khoshlesan.

The idea is to have several bike stations scattered around campus. The stations will have an attendant available to maintain the bikes and prevent destruction according to Khoshlesan.

“The service plans to make it as simple as scanning a student’s ID, which will then allow them to check out a bike, and charge one dollar to their student account.”

The program is estimated to cost over 11 thousand dollars to implement, which includes the cost of bikes and fences. The four co-founders are applying to a five thousand dollar grant offered by the UGA office of sustainability, and fundraising for the rest.

There’s a bike service that’s already doing this, for free. Bulldog bikes has been around for nearly three years, but Khoshlesan says their program is different since it utilizes overseers.

“Our system is just a little different, and I think because it’s different, because it uses attendants, it’ll work….We actually did a survey and all the people we surveyed except for one had never heard of bulldog bikes.”

Currently the organizers are working on a plan to promote the Unibikes, but no date has been set to when this service will be implemented. More information about the program can be found on the groups Facebook page.