The commute to campus will become a little less scary for bikers as Baton Rouge triples its amount of roads and paths designated for bikes available for the coming year.Through efforts by the city, the University and BREC, the amount of bike trails in the city will increase from 23.4 miles to 67.6 miles with many new bike paths focused in and around the University.East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden announced the plans as part of his Healthy BR initiative this summer.The plan calls for 3.7 miles of new bike lanes and 1.2 miles of shared lanes on and through the campus as a part of the second phase of Easy Streets.”Easy streets II is looking at shutting down streets, making some streets one way, and a part of it is bike routes as well,” said Gary Graham, Parking, Traffic and Transportation director. “We are going to have defined bike routes as part of this system, and we will have shared roads as well.”Shared lanes are defined as traffic lanes which have a biking area designated on the right side. Bike lanes are defined by a separate lane beside traffic lanes for bikes to use.Graham explained the new paths on campus have not been defined yet because additional studies are needed to obtain accurate measurements of pedestrians during the fall semester. The new bike routes could be implemented during Christmas break or during the spring semester, after a third party consulting group gets accurate measurements in the fall.The mayor’s plan also outlines projects that will connect student neighborhoods and campus.New paths include more than 7 miles of shared lanes on Burbank Drive and 2 1/2 mile shared lane on Highland Road connecting downtown and campus. Moshe Cohen, mathematics graduate student, commutes to school and around town on his bike and said bike paths will be a major improvement because they connect the paths Baton Rouge already has in place.”All of this is to be completed within the next fiscal year,” Cohen said. “That’s just amazing. Baton Rouge has about 23 miles of bike facilities in town, but they are disconnected where you have to cross major streets to get to other facilities … But now they are tripling the facilities and connecting them.”Graham said the University will also be creating new defined bike areas around the quad for people to park their bikes, and the new buses will have improved racks to encourage students to use both modes of transportation. Mark Martin, University associate librarian and chairman of Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets, said he hopes the new paths will raise awareness about biking commuters and that it is a first step in more plans underway to expand bike facilities in Baton Rouge.Along with raising awareness, Graham said, more bike facilities will lead to less motor vehicle traffic in and around campus.”Traffic is not going to get better if you make Highland Road four lanes because more people will drive there,” Cohen said. “You make traffic better by taking cars off of the road, and you do this by making it easier to get people where they are going without driving. To do this, you invest in other forms of public transportation and making it easier for people to bike to their grocery store, to work and to their friends house via a nice safe bike route.”—–Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]