University sees fewer cars, more bicycles in future

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers GOING GREEN- Debra Wylie, vice president of operations, planning and construction at California State University Channel Islands, has been working with the university's maintenance staff to reduce energy usage on campus and to encourage more environmentally friendly policies, such as recycling. The university is also working on a bike rental program to encourage students and faculty to cut back on driving through campus. More bicycles, fewer cars- that's what officials at California State University Channel Islands want to see on the Camarillo campus in the next few years.

The state university that wants to be known as the "green campus" could achieve its aim with a bikeshare program that officials are interested in bringing on campus. The program would allow students and faculty quick and low-cost access to rental bikes.

Racks of bicycles would be located around campus and at University Glen, the faculty housing community on the campus' north end. The concept includes establishing bike paths that would link the campus with the city's downtown area and possibly to points beyond.

President Richard Rush said a joint university/city effort may be more successful in implementing the program than would a solo attempt by either side in securing grants and business sponsors and recruiting local and regional transportation agencies.

"I think this has some real possibilities in partnership between the city and university," Rush said at a November study session of the city council. "We're going to pursue it and see where it leads."

Similar bike programs are in force at Michigan Institute of Technology and in Europe.

The bike-share program is part of the school's overall push toward becoming increasingly green.

University educators- which include professors of biology, chemistry, and environmental sciences and resource management- formed a task force last year to address ways to diminish dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the effects of campus activity on the environment, in what's called sustainability.

Recommendations being developed by the task force include incorporating environmentally sound practices into the curriculum and establishing a sustainability coordinator position and an advisory committee made up of students, Camarillo residents, and faculty and campus organizations and departments, said Ashish Vaidya, dean of faculty.

"It's not enough for faculty to be excited; students have to be excited about it, and the community has to be excited about it," Vaidya said. "We hope to really make it a core value for the campus."

The faculty task force plans to include its suggestions in the university's five-year strategic plan, which is expected to go before Rush in April for his approval.

Other "green" campus programs are already in place. Last year, trash cans were replaced with recycle/trash wastebaskets and old lighting in student parking lots with new energy-efficient low-wattage bulbs.

The new bulbs give off the same amount of light but last 10 times longer and direct all illumination downward, not losing any light to the night sky.

In 2006, the campus replaced all urinals with ones that use only a few ounces of water.

And since becoming a university, the campus mantra has been to recycle the old state hospital buildings into new uses instead of building new structures, said Debra Wylie, associate vice president of operations, planning and construction.

Funding such projects, however, remains a constant challenge for the university, since renovating buildings and mechanical systems already in place sometimes proves to be more difficult and costly than new construction, Wylie said.

And the university doesn't necessarily reap large savings from every project- it may be several years before the new urinals pay off, for instance, Wylie said.

"Some (projects) have economic incentives, and some are just the right thing to do," Wylie added.