Cycling culture to ‘make life easier’ for Al al Bayt University students

AMMAN — Students and employees at Al al Bayt University will soon be able to roam around buildings within the campus on bicycles, a university official said Thursday. 

The university has recently received 100 bicycles from the Amsterdam Municipality to spread the culture of bicycling in the country, the University’s Dean of Students Affairs Omar Oteen told The Jordan Times. 

“Dutch Ambassador Paul van den Ijssel will attend a ceremony to be held between October 20 and 30 to launch the initiative at the beginning of the next semester,” Oteen announced.

Early in the year, the city of Amsterdam sent about 1,250 bicycles to Jordan to be distributed in refugee camps and host communities.

The university extends over an area of around 10,000 dunums, making it difficult for students and staff members to move between its facilities, Oteen said, noting that the distance between some educational complexes is about 1.2 kilometres.

“We have guest students from China, Indonesia and Malaysia who are used to cycling, and inspired us to apply the idea,” said the dean, adding there are around 20,000 students at the university, located in Mafraq Governorate, some 80km northeast of Amman.

He highlighted that the university has already established necessary parking lots for the bicycles at the main gates and near main facilities and educational complexes.

The deanship, which manages the initiative, will distribute announcements at the university’s faculties to acquaint students with the plan, he noted.

“The Amsterdam Municipality will present 500 additional bicycles to the university if the initiative succeeds,” Oteen announced, adding that if the initiative succeeds afterwards, the university would adopt the idea and expand it to raise the culture of sports among its students and employees.

There is also an idea to distribute some of the bicycles to guest students to use between their dorms and the university to ban the entrance of public transport means on campus, the dean said.