Date
Inquiry

Our building is located on a 1,275-acre university campus among 79 buildings with dozens more in the planning stages. The university has 1,065 support staff, 750 faculty (or 1,435 FTE) and 23,464 peak-period transient students/visitors. Adequate bicycle storage can be easily provided for each building, but providing showers and changing rooms is our challenge. Based on the number of FTE\'s, eight showers would need to be distributed among each of the 79 buildings (see related AGMBC notes). The 200-yard distance maximum would not be possible to maintain for the eight showers required (based on 1,435 FTE\'s) distributed in zones among 79 buildings and therefore the number needed to comply with the requirement for each building would significantly increase by a factor of four times or more. This is not a feasible strategy for the university and also not a good use of resources. However, there are two centrally located facilities on campus with showers to which staff and faculty have unlimited access. The Indoor Recreation Facility has 12 shower heads in 4 areas and the Field House has 143 shower heads in 9 areas. These facilities are linked together with 5 free bus/shuttle lines that operate in 7 to 8 minute intervals between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm. This strategy is analogous to the compliance path for credit EAc4.1 Alternative Transportation: Public Transportation Access, which allows the use of shuttles to connect to primary bus and rail systems. Please confirm that the use of centrally located showers accessible by shuttles is an acceptable alternative to the 200-yard maximum.

Ruling

The project is requesting that showers farther than 200 yards from the building entrance be acceptable because of the free campus shuttle service available. This is not an acceptable alternative compliance path. In order to make bicycle commuting a viable and attractive option for building occupants the showers must be within 200 yards of the building entrance. Please note that the project need only provide showers for 0.5% of FTE of the project itself, not the entire campus. Applicable Internationally.

Internationally Applicable
On
Campus Applicable
Off
Credits