529 Garage, an international bicycle registry, launched Tuesday on the UMass Boston campus, allowing students and employees to register their bicycles with the university and receive a free anti-theft decal.
The program has been active on campus since late August, but the university will begin making resources available for the registry on Sept. 2 with the start of fall semester. Registration will be required to access the 125-space indoor bike rack in West Garage, and is encouraged but optional for other bicycle and scooter users.
Students and employees register for the database through Project 529, which operates the 529 Garage initiative, via a mobile app or their website. Users submit their bicycle’s details, such as the manufacturer, color and serial number, in addition to photos of their bicycle.
Once registered, they can receive a free tamper-resistant shield decal from the university linking their bicycle to their 529 Garage account. Registration will also connect community members to a broader notification system warning them of recent thefts and encouraging them to report any missing bicycle they find.
Daniel Scavongelli, the demand management coordinator for UMass Boston’s transportation department, said he hopes that providing the shield decals to students for free instead of their usual $5 price will “encourage adoption [of the decals] and improve security.”
According to Scavongelli, the Department of Environmental Protection estimated that 3% of employees and 1% of students at UMass Boston — or about 205 employees and 60 students — bike to campus.
“Even with modest percentages, that’s a meaningful number of people choosing active transportation, and it’s a group we’re committed to supporting and growing through ongoing infrastructure and program improvements,” Scavongelli said.
Anyone can register their bicycle or scooter with 529 Garage for free, but UMass Boston’s participation allows the university to monitor registration and theft statistics on campus, receive discounted decals and organize registration events with Project 529 volunteers, according to Brent Fahberger, the director of government affairs for Project 529.
The initiative aims to prevent bicycle theft and make it easier to return stolen bicycles. Fahberger said bicycles with shield decals, which can allow police officers to identify a bicycle’s owner, are less likely to be reported stolen in the Project 529 database and more likely to be returned than those without decals.
University administrators will be able to see a map of recent thefts with pictures and other identifying information for the stolen vehicles. The UMass Boston Police Department will have access to Project 529’s existing law enforcement database, which flags and tracks stolen bicycles, but will not manage the program directly.
UMass Boston will join other universities, including Harvard University and Dartmouth College, as part of 529 Garage’s enterprise program. Project 529 also partners with more than 200 other municipalities, Fahberger said, including law enforcement agencies in California, New Zealand and Canada, where the company was founded in 2013.
The Project 529 website lists the yearly price for a university of 15,575 enrolled students — the most recently reported enrollment count for UMass Boston in 2024 — at about $2,040 a year.
The organization was founded by J Allard, co-founder of Xbox and retired Microsoft executive, after his bicycle was stolen in 2011, according to Project 529’s website. Allard struggled to retrieve his bicycle even after the Seattle Police Department had recovered it, Fahberger said, because there was no way to verify his ownership. Only after showing the police department the receipt for a custom modification he had installed could he reclaim his bicycle.
According to Bike Index, although bicycle theft accounts for only 3% of all larceny reports nationally, “most bike thefts go unreported, meaning the true scale of the issue is much larger.” They estimate that nearly 2.4 million bicycles are stolen annually in the US, 63% of which were not reported to the police. 95% of bicycles stolen from outdoor racks in 2023 were taken despite being locked.
In its 2024 Clery Act crime report, the UMBPD reported no robberies and only two burglaries — defined as the unlawful entry of a structure to commit theft — between 2021 and 2023.
In addition to joining Project 529, UMass Boston offers bike parking spaces, a self-service maintenance station in West Garage, discounted BlueBike memberships and other bicycle resources. The university also created a new page on its website dedicated to biking and launched a biking community newsletter to encourage more students and staff to use bicycles.
“UMass Boston’s efforts aren’t just about locking up a bike safely — we’re building a long-term strategy to make biking and scootering more accessible, convenient, and integrated into daily life on campus,” Scavongelli said. “That includes continuing to invest in infrastructure, planning improvements through our Campus Master Plan, and listening to the needs of the community.”
