ASUSU rescinds bike lane vote
Installing bike lanes on the sidewalks throughout campus is no longer a possibility at Utah State University.
Members of the ASUSU Executive Council voted against a resolution Tuesday that would install bikes lanes on all main walkways connecting north to south and east to west.
Originally, the council passed the resolution two weeks ago, but were forced to revote due to a confusion concerning the number of votes that were given to pass the resolution in the first place. The resolution was passed by a 4-5 vote.
“This is not what students want, I promise you,” said Josh Wood, campus diversity and organizations vice president.
The council members debated whether or not there was enough of a need to install the lanes.
“We would be a mockery to place something like this on campus,” said Joseph Ure, administrative assistant.
Spencer Watts, Academic Senate vice president, suggested limiting the installation of bike lanes just to the roadways in order to allow more space on certain sidewalks for students. But Rosie Strong, athletics vice president, disagreed stating that the 4-feet area that the lanes would occupy leaves adequate space for pedestrians.
“Is it really that big of a deal to give them 4 feet to keep the rest of our students safe?” she said.
Laurel Evans, programming vice president, added that the lines could only help students and bikers at the same time. “We’re painting lines on a sidewalk and if people don’t use them, we’re no worse off than we are now,” she said.
In other business, Business Senator Lindsay Christensen presented a resolution that would allow the Executive Council’s administrative assistant to work with the Academic Senate simultaneously. Currently, the senate does not have a paid assistant. With this legislation, there would be one assistant for both groups to allow better communication. The assistant would also receive a monthly stipend as well.
“This is a good way to help Academic Senate to have organized meetings and increase communication with Executive Council,” Christensen said.
Strong presented a resolution to change the title of athletics vice president to athletics and campus recreation vice president. The change would help include campus recreation activities in ASUSU that are currently less recognized, Strong said.
“It doesn’t affect the office at all except the change to its title,” she said. “Campus recreation is a huge part of this office.”
The change wouldn’t go into effect until 2006-’07 after the student body votes on it.
Strong also presented a resolution that would allow the renovation of the HPER Building to expand about one acre into the HPER fields. Currently, there is a resolution that prohibits any further building on the 9.8 acres of HPER field on campus. This new resolution would allow the expansion onto the field but require the university to provide replacement fields somewhere else on campus.
As the last pieces of legislation, Engineering Senator Lincoln Essig proposed to form two different accounts to facilitate money from Tier-II tuition money earmarked for a sophomore scholarship fund and classroom improvements.
-mmackay@cc.usu.edu