Bright Green Paint Marks The Way For Sac State Cyclists

Sacramento State bike lanes and bike paths on campus are now marked with lime green paint. 

It took approximately 270 gallons of specially mixed green paint to mark stripes on nearly two miles of bike paths and 1200 gallons to mark almost three miles of green bike lanes.  The lanes are wider than the typical bike lane.

Tony Lucas with the school's Transportation and Parking Services department says the $500,000 paint job includes intersections that have wide green rectangles painted next to pedestrian crossings.

"It creates a space for a bicycle to get over to the left turn lane. If maybe they aren't confident enough to use the green bike lanes, and they prefer to use the sidewalks," says Lucas.

Joy Lane rides her bike to school every day from Folsom. She says the lanes on campus are better than the rest of her commute.

"It's really cool. I feel it's like Candy Land. It's nice because you're visible and I don't feel as nervous."

Lucas says the school has been planning this safety project for the past 30 months. State University Drive and College Town Drive received a lot of paint.

"We have a solid green bike lane and then we applied what's called a stuttered bike lane showing motorists that bicyclists will tend to cross there and showing bicyclists that they should probably start planning their merge across lanes," says Lucas.

Carl Furdge commutes to school and across campus to get to work.

"I feel like this line being here, people are more inclined to staying in their lane and everything and not drifting over here too far to the right when they turn," says Furdge.

Students were assigned to perform some of the engineering and traffic studies -a practice that will continue with the next phase of transportation safety projects.