Some Wichita State students spend lots of time looking for a parking spot, but not graduate student Lucas Cylke.

Cylke said he uses the Redbud Trail as an alternative route to escape buying a parking permit or waiting for the shuttles.

“I ride [the Redbud Trail] almost every day on my bike,” Cylke said. “I have really enjoyed it.”

The paved path — an effort known as “Bike Walk Wichita” — stretches along a two-and-a-half mile route starting from Oliver and 17th Street to I-135 west of North Minneapolis. The goal of Bike Walk Wichita is to extend the path to Andover and Goddard.

The trail was initiated through the Rails to Trails program by the Bike Walk Wichita organization, a non-profit group that promotes community wellness.

 Several WSU graduate students have worked as interns for Bike Walk Wichita and helped promote building the trail. It took more than 10 years of planning before construction began.

A federal law, known as “rail banking,” allows railroad companies to negotiate with a trail agency and turn an abandoned railroad into a public trail. Once the city was granted permission to build the trail, they applied for a federal transportation grant in which the federal government pays for 80 percent and the city pays for 20 percent of the trail’s cost.

Despite the city being granted this money, it took the help of Bike Walk Wichita to convince city leaders, city council members and surrounding neighborhoods about the overall benefits of having the trail before it was approved.

“I want to commend the mayor and city council for helping build the Redbud Trail,” said Barry Carroll, founder of Bike Walk Wichita. “Change can be scary. There was concern by neighbors for safety and vandalism, but recent trends show that trails are safe.”

Trails are a way of advocating community pride and promoting equity of resources, Carroll said. The northeast part of Wichita has been neglected. This is just one more step to make these neighborhoods better and safer.

Furthermore, WSU and Bike Walk Wichita have built the Redbud Trail to promote the environment, advocating community health.

“We want to build an environment to make it easier and safer to bike, run and walk,” Carroll said.

Greg Meissen, professor of psychology and coordinator of the community psychology doctoral program, said this is the next frontier in health.

“We are starting to hit a plateau on how to cure illnesses,” Meissen said. “Our next step is changing behavior.”

Meissen said some of the biggest health problems are simply caused by  a person’s eating and exercising habits, and tobacco use.

“This is much more difficult [than taking a pill],” he said. “By creating policies to make people be healthier, we nudge people.”

Meissen said the Redbud Trail is also a part of WSU’s plans for Innovation Campus. It focuses on people who live within two miles of the campus.

The city of Wichita will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the trial this fall. No date has been set.

“We want students from WSU to celebrate this with us,” Carroll said. “This is for them, and the community.”