Cyclists who make the long trek up the hill to the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) can now get a quick shower before heading off to class.
Two showers, complete with a sink, small bench and some hooks have been available for about a months now at no cost to the users and in time for the prime cycling season.
One is located at the north end of the campus's main building and the other at the south end.
"We've got quite a core group of cyclists at UNBC and we've been hearing over the past few months that people really wants showers on campus at convenient locations so that they could ride up the hill, get ready for work and just make their lives a bit easier," said UNBC sustainability manager Danielle Smyth.
The showers were realized by retrofitting one of the two handicapped washrooms located at each end of the campus.
"We've still got several other handicapped washrooms but in these hallways in particular there were two side-by-side so we retrofitted one in each hallway," Smyth said.
Smyth estimates there are as many as 150 people who routinely cycle, run or walk to UNBC each day. Cyclist who don't want to pedal up the hill can a city bus equipped with a bike rack the rest of the way to UNBC.
Judging by word-of-mouth, Smyth said they're being well used by staff, faculty and students.
"We're going to be putting up a survey in each of the shower rooms just to track usage as well as get some feedback in terms of other kinds of initiatives we could put in place related to cycling and other modes of transportation."
