UW senior Nick Passint rode his bicycle up University Avenue to work last week, and in minutes he encountered a skateboarder weaving through the eastbound bike lane, multiple bicyclists going the wrong direction, and a flock of pedestrians blocking his path.

“All those things are really frustrating,” Passint said.

Now, the task of educating those misdirected students will fall on Passint and three other students as part of the University of Wisconsin’s “Bucky’s Bike Ambassadors” program, a new comprehensive information campaign intended to promote bike safety and pedestrian-motorist communication on campus.

“The number one thing we’re looking for is courtesy among all road users,” UW Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Alison Carpenter said. “There is potential for a lot of conflict; this is a big campus with a lot of people and a lot of different modes (of transportation).”

“There are a ton of bikers on campus and not everyone bikes in a constructive fashion,” Katie Stubbendick, a UW junior and bike ambassador, said.

According to a 2001 survey by UW Transportation Services, 71 percent of students walk or ride a bike to class in good weather.

“Environmentally, there are reasons that people should be on bikes,” Stubbendick said. “There are health reasons and there are fun reasons.”

The Bucky’s Ambassadors program was conceived by Carpenter nine months ago and began with hiring four student ambassadors financed by a $12,000 grant from the Department of Transportation to cover about three-fourths of the program’s budget.

Since August, the ambassadors, which include Passint, Stubbendick, and UW students Annie Lien and Tom Olson, have been traversing the UW campus trying to educate the university population on pedestrian and bike safety.

The ambassadors, wearing their distinctive yellow logo shirts, might be seen stopping a bike tour in the middle of Library Mall or setting up for a “safety day” on the Lakeshore path.

“There really isn’t a typical day,” Passint said.

On a “safety day,” the ambassadors stake out a particular area on campus, post signs and distribute literature and free bike reflectors.

In addition, training sessions and bike workshops are scheduled to train UW students on practical bike skills, maintenance and the rules of the road.

While the program works in cooperation with both UW and local police departments, Carpenter insisted that the program will not act as a law-enforcement mechanism.

“[The ambassadors] are not enforcement at all,” Carpenter said. “We’re out there in August and September doing preventative work, and we don’t want people to get (traffic) tickets.”

Added Lien, “We’re not a group people should be intimidated by.”

The highlight of the program will be a free Bike-In Film Fest at Memorial Union Sept. 23-24 that will coincide with “Great Choices Week,” a UW Transportation Services-planned event that highlights alternatives to driving automobiles on campus.

The bike ambassador program is scheduled to run through the fall and may begin again next spring or summer after its initial merits have been evaluated.

Carpenter said she hopes to see attendance grow each day. So far, bike tours have garnered anywhere from one to five participants at a time, while the initial bike workshop did not entice any participants.

The bike ambassadors said they remain optimistic, however.

“People who commute every day — and that’s a lot of people — have been really excited,” Lien said. “They have problems with the way inexperienced commuters behave on the road, or drivers, or even pedestrians, and those are all areas that we are trying to target at some level. The people that have responded to us have been really positive.”