Duo-Gard Provides One-Stop Shelter Shopping for Colleges and Universities
“College and university campuses are unique environments for their high density, stimulating atmosphere and defined boundaries. These factors make them ideal environments to incorporate bikes.” League of American Bicyclists website
How does Duo-Gard continue to be such a strong, innovative leader in serving these unique educational environments?
Sean McKnight, Duo-Gard’s bike infrastructure coordinator, provides some insight in this Q & A:
What does Duo-Gard bring to the table for this market? We have a one-stop-and-go customer-centric approach that enables us to provide all the resources required for a successful project from beginning to end. We have complimentary planning services. We manufacture our own products. We can customize to specific customer needs. We are also able to install our products to ensure a seamless partnership from start to finish of a project.
How important is bike parking and storage to this market? This is very important within colleges and universities. An institution’s transportation does not always fill the gaps needed for students. Transit is not always an option and walking often is not the preferred mode. Travel between classes is another reason to have a bicycle. An inevitable increase in campus transportation calls for both short-term parking and long-term storage solutions.
What’s currently of special interest to the education market? More emphasis on security, convenience and aesthetics. Enclosed and secured bicycle parking shelters are becoming more popular due to the need for long-term bike storage on campus. Colleges and universities are more often looking for exterior solutions so students don’t need to bring bikes into the building. When we provide a nice storage option, the amount of bike parking in that area usually increases, as does the demand.
For our secured shelters, we often provide doors with an internal electric strike used for key swipe access and other electronic entry systems. This door allows the college or university to have their own security team add the specific access control system preferred. We offer pre-wired electrical packages within our shelters to minimize the need for an on-site electrical contractor. An electrical contractor would only be required to make the final connections to the shelter when it’s on-site and erected. This approach saves significant costs for our college/university customers.
Aesthetics plays an important role. Every college and university wants to create an attractive streetscape. This often means creating a structure that expands or complements an existing building’s façade and adds to the image the institution wants to project. Collaborating with the institution, we can offer recommendations that enhance a customized appearance with a cost-effective approach.
Planning, manufacturing, engineering and customization, electrical capabilities and installation services set Duo-Gard apart, concludes McKnight.