Bicycles are everywhere since Baton Rouge and the University began going “green.”To deal with the increasing number of bicyclists, map out safe routes around town and provide the rules of the road in the state and on campus, Student Government, the Environmental Conservation Organization and the Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets have partnered together to create LSU Bikes — a one-stop Web page for all bicycling information on SG’s Web site.Moshe Cohen, mathematics graduate student, said no Web site or organization for bike advocacy or collective biking information exists.Cohen said many riders do not know the state laws and University regulations about bicycles. He said the Web site will show bikers what they are allowed to do instead of telling them what they cannot do.”Helping bikers helps everyone,” Cohen said. “Solving this issue will solve larger traffic issues around LSU’s campus. The goal is to house bicycling information in one place … to pair the rules with their rights.”Cohen said University rules prohibit biking on sidewalks and in the Quad, yet about five bike racks stand in front of Middleton Library. He said the University was sending bikers mixed messages.Mark Martin, president of Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets, said his organization provided the information for the Web site.”The biggest part of [our involvement] is that B.R.A.S.S. started up as a community organization outside of campus, and we’ve been trying to work as much as we can with the organizations on campus, but there aren’t any specific bike clubs,” Martin said. “We’re trying to develop a coherent bike program.”Cas Smith, SG assistant director of Campus Development and biological engineering senior, said the LSU Bikes Web site is in its beginning stages. Cohen said the bike initiative started when SG took over the bike auction last year. He said SG raised $4,000, which was used to install bike pump stations around campus at the end of the summer.Cohen said some of the pumping stations are behind Middleton Library, by the LSU Police Department station, between Herget and Miller halls and outside the University Student Recreational Complex.Smith said both the University and the students need to work to fix the “good problem” of more bikes on campus.”The University’s working on their side with putting in the bike master plan,” Smith said. “Phase One of the bike master plan will be complete by the end of this semester. It is projected to include nine different hubs around the peripheral of the Quad.” Smith said Phase Two will add six more hubs around the Quad. “The student side is change in behavior,” he said. “Most students do not know how to ride legally.”Smith said SG is going to work with the Office of Orientation to include how to ride bikes on campus for the different student orientation programs.”Hopefully, by the beginning of next year, incoming students will know how to appropriately ride, which will slowly change the behavior side,” Smith said.Gary Graham, Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director, said the cost of different bike hubs around campus will cost between $130,000 and $140,000. “That’s part of the increase in parking fees that we’ve been increasing over the last few years,” Graham said. “We got the bike plan geared up this year. The first push is to build new bike areas. We targeted the Quad … We will create bike lanes when we get that report later this fall.”————Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]