by Aimee Wang
Many students choose to ride bikes to get around quickly on campus. A new bike shop will provide more opportunities to do so.
A new bike shop is set to open on campus, offering students and faculty an eco-friendly and affordable transportation option.
Tartan Bike Shop, founded by civil and environmental engineering graduate students Kenedy Sanchez and Hosea Santiago, is still in the works but is expected to open either in fall 2025 or spring 2026.
The initiative aims to reduce the campus’s carbon footprint and encourage safe cycling as a sustainable alternative to driving.
Once open, the shop will offer bike rentals, bike repairs, sales of used bikes, and will provide information about how to take care of bikes. To ensure that biking is safer for students, all bicycles come with a lock and helmet.
Sanchez and Santiago are focused on keeping the shop as affordable as possible for students: “We are definitely not trying to make a profit off it,” Sanchez said. “It’s more a resource for students, if anything. We want to provide an option for students who want to bike but don’t have the equipment or access to repairs.”
The idea for the bike shop came from a problem Sanchez and Santiago had noticed throughout their time at Carnegie Mellon University: Many students do not want to commit to buying a bike simply because their residence in Pittsburgh is temporary. Whether it’s due to challenges such as storing a bike over the summer or the difficulty of transporting it home after graduation, students often abandon bikes or never consider purchasing one at all.
“The turnover of students every year is a big issue,” said Santiago. “A lot of students just don’t feel like buying a bike when they can’t take it with them when they leave, and it’s hard to justify the cost for something that might just sit in storage for months.”
This is where the bike rental model became especially appealing. “Offering affordable rentals gives students a chance to ride without the long-term commitment,” Sanchez said. “They can bike around campus during the semester without worrying about the hassle of ownership.”
Both Sanchez and Santiago bring valuable experience to the project, having worked at bike shops during their undergraduate years. Their passions for issues such as cycling and sustainable transportation led them to pursue this initiative, but they knew it would take hard work and collaboration with university administrators and organizations to bring the idea to life.
After they had developed a comprehensive proposal with a detailed budget, they successfully secured funding from the Student Senate and the Graduate Student Assembly. They also worked closely with CMU Parking and Transportation Services and SLICE to ensure the project was fully approved.
The duo has already tested the waters with a successful bike shop pop-up for students during
campus Bike Week on the Cut last fall, drawing in over 80 students. The turnout confirmed that there’s a strong demand for a dedicated bike shop on campus, and they are eager to make this vision a permanent resource.
Transportation Services has assembled numerous resources, including maps and biking equiptment, to make it easier to bike on campus. The universiti has been actively creating new bicycle guidelines on campus. In fall 2024, new dismount zones were created to improve bike safety.
The Tartan Bike Shop is hoping to be part of a broader campus sustainability initiative aimed at reducing traffic congestion and encouraging greener commuting options on campus.
The new shop will contribute to those efforts by offering an alternative to driving around the Carnegie Mellon University campus area, helping to lower the campus’s overall carbon footprint.
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