Garner Street motorists: get ready to share the road.

State College Borough Council voted last week to connect the Boalsburg bicycle path to Garner Street for a one-year trial, giving Penn State student and faculty bicyclists another option when commuting to campus.

Bicycle commuters have become a staple of State College life and the trend is increasing in popularity, said Brian Dempsey, former Centre Region Bike Coalition president.

"I'm absolutely certain that it has [become more popular]," Dempsey said. "It seems to me I see a lot more bikers than I used to see."

Dempsey, an environmental engineering professor, said he approved of Borough Council's decision to extend the bike path onto Garner Street.

However, he would still like to see routes added to College and Beaver avenues sometime in the future.

"If you look down at the intersection of College Avenue and University [Drive], it's hard for bicyclists to go across those intersections and still feel safe," Dempsey said.

"It would be nice if we had a more convenient way for bikers to get across those intersections."

Council member James Meyer said commuters would also benefit from bike paths on Pugh and Allen streets because a majority of cyclists are using those routes to travel to and from the university.

"I think the overall question is where they should be versus whether they're needed or not," Meyer said.

A stipulation of council's decision will be the removal of 11 commuter parking spaces on Garner Street, Meyer said.

"I think this town needs to have more bike lanes, be more bike-friendly," said council member Elizabeth Goreham.

Removing on-street parking from Garner Street will prevent any collisions between cyclists and open car doors, Goreham said.

"The biggest fear of bicyclists is somebody parked opening their door," Goreham said.

Adding bicycle paths to downtown State College can potentially reduce the number of collisions between motorists and cyclists, said State College Police Department Cpl. Mark Argiro.

"Bike paths will traditionally help with the movement of traffic because we should theoretically have less motor vehicles accidents involving bicyclists," he said.

In poor weather, maintenance crews may have less time to devote to bicycle path clean up, but State College paths are typically maintained, Argiro said.

"I'm in favor of anything that increases the use of bicycles while at the same time keeping the roadways for pedestrians and motor vehicle traffic," he said.