Ryan Lowly / Staff Photographer

Returning students may notice a change this semester, when passing along Campanile Walkway. Those bright green lines are part of a yearlong bike lane trial facilitated by Associated Students.

Dr. Geoffrey Chase, dean of undergraduate studies at San Diego State, said the bike lanes offer an alternative for students to get to and from campus.

“It’s a great example of what student leadership can do when they set their minds to initiating and follow(ing) through on a project that really benefits the whole campus,” Chase said.

After a year of trying, the bill to create bike lanes on the SDSU campus was passed in March of 2008. After the bill was passed through the University Affairs Board and A.S. Council, A.S. appointed a landscape architect to assist with the construction of the bike lanes. According to the bill written by A.S., the dependence on vehicles will hopefully decrease by adding bike lanes on and around campus.

A.S. President Grant Mack has been working on getting this bill passed for three years, since he was a freshman. Mack elaborated on the benefits of having bike lanes on campus and how increasingly sustainable and accessible they are, as well as manageable and inexpensive.

“There’s a lot of students, faculty and staff that live only a mile or two from campus that drive to school and I’m just like, “Are you kidding me?’ That’s so expensive. You have to buy a parking pass, you have to get here early and there’s traffic,” Mack said. “If we had viable bike lanes, you can just bike from your house to here.”

The cost of the student-led initiative includes the paint, lockers, racks and labor. If the one-year trial is successful, A.S. plans to build more bike lanes around campus. Although there are only stickers on the bike lanes now, if it becomes official, a red painted stain that will blend in with SDSU will officially mark the bike lanes.

“Capital projects are not cheap,” Mack said. “It’s not going to be a hundred bucks. It’s going to be in the thousands. Labor is the biggest expense.”

The policy for bicycles and skateboards was that it was not permitted to ride either of them throughout SDSU. Now, students can bike or skateboard freely through the designated bike lanes.

“It’s expensive when a public safety pulls you over saying you’re not supposed to (be) biking or skateboarding on campus and you can get a $150 ticket,” Mack said. “That’s ridiculous, for skateboarding on campus? That’s not right.”

A.S. is currently working on conducting a study to test how many people are using the bike lanes every day.

“Up until now, I think they have been working fine,” Dan Zuzuarregui, a senior at SDSU, said. “People have definitely utilized them. The only problem I see is a lot of pedestrian traffic in it and that causes some back up with the actual bikes and the skateboarders.”

In accordance with the safety concerns, so far there have been no injuries and fewer than 10 complaints.

At 10 a.m. this Wednesday, businesses will visit SDSU to give, sell and educate students about bikes and skateboards. At noon, President Stephen L. Weber will make an appearance, biking down Campanile Walkway.

For more information, students are free to go to the Bike and Skateboard Access Safety Study at as.sdsu.edu/greenlove.