The OU Police Department and OU Physical Plant will impound bicycles improperly parked around the stadium during home football games.

Game attendees need to park bicycles in proper bicycle racks instead of attaching them to poles, trees, fences or other items, Lt. Bruce Chan, OUPD spokesman, said.

The policy is not new, but it is now being strongly enforced, Chan said.

For the first few football games, OUPD did not confiscate improperly-parked bicycles but instead left warning notices. OUPD started confiscating bicycles Oct. 31, the night of the football game against Kansas State University, Chan said.

“Because improperly secured bicycles can damage campus property and also present safety concerns, we remove bicycles that are improperly secured to … any item that is not a bike rack,” Amanda Hearn, spokesperson for the OU Physical Plant, stated in an e-mail.

During the Oct. 31 game, the Physical Plant impounded 14 bicycles from the stadium area, Hearn said.

Lona Bridge, a Norman resident and football season ticket holder, said she and her husband were the owners of two of those 14 bicycles.

“My poor old husband, 65 years old, rode his bicycle because the doctor did not want him to walk that far [to the game],” Bridge said.

Bridge and her husband have been parking their bike in the same place for years, she said, and they did not get any warning before their bikes were confiscated. OUPD did, however, leave a note explaining what happened and where they could go to get their bicycles.

“The note was not secure,” Bridge said. “It could have easily disappeared. We are not students, so we had no clue.

“We never got a warning [about not parking there], or we wouldn’t have done it.”

Bridge got the bicycles from the Physical Plant but did not get any compensation for the lock that OUPD cut off her bicycle.

Melanie Mason, microbiology sophomore, had a similar experience when she attached her bicycle to a telephone pole near a stadium gate during the Kansas State game.

When she walked by the area again, she noticed that her bicycle was not there and assumed it had been stolen, Mason said.

“It was not there, and I panicked,” Mason said. “I thought it had been stolen. I did not even think to look for a note.”

After talking to a police officer, Mason went to the Physical Plant after halftime but was not told if her bike was there, she said. She did, though, get her bicycle returned after about 30 minutes.

“I did not even get a ticket or anything,” Mason said. “They just freaked me out and cut my bike lock, so I could not ride my bike to school for a few days.

Currently, there is no fee to reclaim a bicycle, and people should call the Physical Plant at the end of games to collect their bicycle, Hearn said.

To reclaim a bicycle:

Call Physical Plant Customer Service at 325-3060.

The Physical Plant is located off of Felgar Street.