Our world, including the Ripon campus and community, is increasingly susceptible to the societal ills of obesity, traffic congestion, fuel consumption and pollution. In recent years, a growing percentage of Ripon students have brought a vehicle to campus. Too often, Ripon students, faculty and staff alike use their vehicles to travel from their campus residences and offices to classes, the cafeteria and the gym. A recent statistic about American’s driving habits suggests that 50 percent of car trips in the United States are less than two miles. We all rely too much on our cars.

To minimize vehicular traffic on campus, Ripon has systematically moved campus parking from the interior of the campus to the exterior in an effort to make car travel less convenient. In the last year, portions of the two main streets that bisected campus were removed to create a safer, greener, more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly mall. The Ripon Velorution Project, now in its second year, is designed to take this vision a step further. The project is a strong and public statement of the College’s commitment to a healthier and greener community.

Stemming from the word “vélo” which is French for bicycle, velorution is an anagram of the word revolution. The velorution is a global social movement wherein the bicycle is part of the solution to problems of obesity, traffic congestion, fuel consumption, pollution and the erosion of communities to urban sprawl. The velorution aims to return the bicycle from use solely for sport or recreation to its roots as a healthy, fun and sustainable form of transportation.

Ripon College is proud to join the velorution by providing a new custom Ripon College Red Hawks Cannondale F9 mountain bike to each first-year student who signs a pledge that he/she will not bring a vehicle to campus through the duration of the 2009-10 school year. In doing so, Ripon hopes to break these students of their dependency on cars for transportation and thereby reduce the College’s ecological footprint.