BROWNSVILLE – If you’ve ever walked between the library and the land bridge on the Brownsville campus, you might have taken notice of a seatless bike with two flat tires attached to a bike rack.
In a Facebook post, UTRGV Biomedical Science Major Chris Cisneros named the bike Ol’ Rusty. He remembers the bike being in the same spot for years, as far back as when the school was the University of Texas at Brownsville.
“There was this guy who came in and he had said he doesn’t want anything to be done with the bike because he remembered his dad back when it was still UTB. He asked his dad a little bit more on the information he said he traces it back to about 7 years,” said Cisneros.
As we were wrapping up the interview with Cisneros, he looks back at the bike and notices a University worker taking pictures with it in a way he describes as “having intentions to remove it”.
He approaches her and tells her the bike shouldn’t be removed.
We spoke to the Director of Parking Services, and the Parking Manager to discuss what they know about Ol’ Rusty and if they have any intentions of having it removed.
“I honestly don’t have an idea whose it…who purchased it or, why it’s still there. It’s a very unique situation because it has been there for a while and I know there’s some students that wanna keep it that way,” said Aguilar.
Though he says the department is not planning to remove the bike, they request students who take bikes to school to not leave them behind like ‘Ol Rusty.
“We encourage that you bring and then you take your bike, unless you live on campus you need to leave your bike parked. We do ask that you invest in a lock so that you can lock your bike to the bike rack. Just for security purposes,” said Sandoval.
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