The city of Urbana will host its first bike education course next Thursday. The course serves as an option to reduce the $100 fine normally given for biking offences.

During the month of May, two classes will be offered and serve as a trial run for a potentially permanent option for bicyclists written tickets. The program was put together by Lt. Bob Fitzgerald of the Urbana Police Department.

“We thought it would be better to educate the people rather than writing them $100 tickets,” he said.

Fitzgerald said a recent increase in the number of people riding bicycles has led to an increase in complaints about bicyclists, mostly in the campus area — especially around Lincoln Avenue.

In 2012, the city of Urbana decided to more heavily enforce the city ordinance against biking violations. Unlike traffic violations by drivers, the tickets for bikers do not go against their driving records and do not require an appearance in court.

As of March 1 this year, ticketed bicyclists were offered the option to either pay the $100 fine or pay $30 and attend a bicycle education class. The city of Urbana decided to offer an option similar to driver’s education for motorists who receive tickets.

“We thought if we could come up with a class where you can educate them and teach them how to be safe, we thought that would be better than just writing them a ticket and saying, ‘That’s it,” Fitzgerald said. “It would be a more productive and a better relationship between the police officer and the person.”

About 20 people are currently signed up for the two May classes.

The classes will be taught by Rebecca Bird, a city planner for Urbana. Bird is a certified instructor by the League of American Bicyclists. She said the class will teach about the major causes of crashes and teach people to be safer on the roads as bicyclists.

“There are a lot of things that people don’t understand about riding a bicycle, and particularly with traffic,” she said. “We learn to ride bikes when we’re kids, and we don’t necessarily have a formal education in the safe way to ride a bicycle.”

The option to take a bicycle education class represents one of three parts to a larger campaign about bicycle safety by the city of Urbana. Bird said the city is encouraging people to ride bikes more frequently because they represent a more sustainable mode of transportation.

With that comes enforcement, Bird said, because people have to abide by the rules of the road while biking. She understands that ticketing bicyclists does not seem intuitive to most people, but said that an active campaign on bike safety is the only way to ensure that people behave on the roads.

“As a municipality, we’re not trying to be heavy-handed and write a bunch of people tickets,” she said. “It’s about getting bicyclists to think about the responsibility of sharing the road with others.”

Rene Dunn, public information officer for the Champaign Police Department, said bike safety classes have not been discussed for the city of Champaign, and that she could not offer an opinion or comment on the topic.

Sari can be reached at [email protected] or @Sari_Lesk.