Suburbs or City Commuting? Which is safer?
 

Just wondering how people feel when it comes to cycling in the downtown cores of cities compared to the suburbs...which one feels safer for you?

Suburbs....wide road space, more room for drivers and bikers.
BUT....cars are going much faster.

Downtown: Congestion, narrow roads, tight corners, competition for road space with cars/bikes
BUT
Drivers are used to see'ing cyclists and there are more cyclists downtown...power in numbers.

Personally...having cycled in both circumstances, I feel safer downtown where there are more bikers with me.

<ARGH>..... I wanted to have a poll..but the system freezed up on me..oh well.

Here is +1 for Downtown Cycling

I like downtown too. I find it easier to assert myself and do my thing around the slower cars because I don't feel as small.

I feel suburbia is safer compared with the concrete jungle.

I like downtown riding, but will also enjoy the better line of site and open roads of the suburbs. It all depends on the mood I'm in and what bike I'm riding.

There are more folks in big SUVs in the burbs not looking for your 'tree-hugging' arse pedaling around. Depending on the driver, you will be looked down upon, or over looked all together the farther away from the city you get. Others will give you tons of room, and treat you as if you are some type of human, that has feelings and might like an extra 3 feet of space, and a little less engine roar.

My commute took me through the burbs, so I had to deal with it.

Around here, city cycling is far safer than suburban. In the city we're a normal part of traffic. In the 'burbs we're an annoying nuisance.

Agree with tsl, often in the suburbs your options for getting from A to B are fewer, and you may get forced onto a major thoroughfare. Also in the city you just see more cyclists and drivers are more used to seeing you.

I'm assuming by "safety" we are talking about minimizing the probability of being hit by a car at speed, as opposed to hitting a pothole or a curb or something...



I think suburban commuting *CAN* be safer than a busy downtown area if you can route yourself through subdivisions and parks where traffic is rare and at low speed.

If you're just straight-lining down a 70kph suburban arterial road with high-speed overtaking and cars pulling out at all other times... yeah, not optimal.

As a highschool kid in my home town I was perfectly content to ride down country roads with little or no shoulder and have huge trucks flying by me at 60 mph. I couldn't imagine riding in a city.

Now it's reversed. City riding seems easy since I can keep in the flow of traffic and people are used to cyclists. For that matter I prefer biking to driving in a city. For one thing parking is so much easer (and cheaper) on a bike and you can turn into a pedestrian at any time it's more convenient. Sometimes when looking for something in the immediate area I'd just as soon be on foot.

It all depends on what you're used to and comfortable with. I don't know that either is inherently more dangerous.

Good topic, and one I've often thought about.

You say the suburban roads offer "more room", but at high speeds I want / need more space, and often find the high speed lanes unsharable. I'd say the speed takes more than the little bit of extra room offers. One vote for city is safer.

I think there's more gradiations than "City" and "Suburbs" - and that different parts of the country will have different cultures that will make it easier or harder to get around on bike.

I think the difference is, "Am I riding on an artery, or am I riding where drivers are attentive and reasonable." The 'burbs can be perfectly safe, so long as you keep off the main roads that funnel traffic from the subdivisions to the Walmart. People are irritated, in a hurry, and inattentive. On suburban back roads, they're more relaxed, which ironically means they're more alert - tense drivers are distracted drivers, and distracted drivers make you go splat.

In town, it's the opposite, they're keeping an eye out for any sort of trouble, as a pedestrian or delivery truck could come barreling out at them at any moment- which means they'll notice the bike, too, and they're not going fast enough to be annoyed or even notice the cyclist's pace. But, once you leave a town center, and hop onto a two lane connector without a lot of intersections, we're back into the tense-and-impatient zone.

I look at this from a driver point of view. When I am driving in the city, the madness from cars, gridlock, taxi, buses, delivery truck, double parking, and pedestrian all seem to drown out folks on bicycle. I am more aware of a bicyclist in the suburbs than I do in the city. Regardless which one I feel safer riding, I think driver awareness will determine the safety factor.

The city(downtown) is mostly safer, if only because the speed limits are lower and drivers simply can't travel as fast, therefore accidents are less fatal.

In the burbs not even subdivisions are safe... they are so large and with wide roads that you get people driving 60 or 70km/h while they cut through the subdivisions to beat long lights. Then comes the "carterial" roads where everybody is going 80km/h and tailgating. If you get hit here you'll be run over by 5 people before anybody knows what happened.

The only thing about the burbs that is ok is not getting facing the door-prize constantly.

My guess is that in the city one is a bit more likely to get into an accident, but it will be smaller and less fatal due to lower speeds, unlike the ones in the burbs.

Overall I'd say suburbia, BUT there are some suburban areas that are the most dangerous areas to bike in.

One leg of my suburban commute has me on a 1.5 mile stretch with an 8ft bike lane and exactly 5 business driveways and two intersections. It really doesn't get much safer than that. I really don't care that the traffic is going 50mph, as I don't have much interaction with them.

Another leg of my suburban commute is a 3/4 mile stretch with countless very busy business driveways. It's no problem in the morning because the business traffic is light, but in the afternoon it's quite the gauntlet to run - much more dangerous than downtown Portland.

Since downtown has about 20 cross streets per mile and the suburbs (around here) average about 8 cross streets per mile, I'd have to say suburbs are more safe.

Just have to stay off of Mill Plain in this burb - it's a death trap. Same with MLK in the city. Some roads in cities and suburbs are practically impossible to ride with any expectation of safety.

I'm very selective with my routes and can find semi-safe cycling in both the city of Chicago and it's suburbs.

Michael

I'm safest where drivers are most attentive to what's going around. In my area, this is usually downtown. More pedestrians everywhere, cyclists, people stopping to park, etc. More people's wits are about them. Slower traffic is nice too.

Arterials are nice with less traffic lights, but our downtown is also more flat, so I can just keep up with traffic instead of having it blow by.

I'm more accustomed to driving downtown because that's where I live and work. I'm used to the constant red lights, matching out for parked cars and opening doors, and pedestrians leaping out into the street to jaywalk. I haven't ridden much in the suburbs but when I lived in the 'burbs as a kid (I only rode my bike in the park nearby) I was leery of the wide, busy streets and the cars whipping past. Looking for slower moving sidestreets is trickier in the burbs because they are often crescents and circles and would add kilometres to a commute and I'd still have to cross busy intersections.

My vote for downtown riding.

City by far. Drivers are forced to be alert in the city, so they see you. In the suburbs, too much autopilot, often mixed with bad road engineering.

You mean you see other cyclists downtown?

Not where I live.

I vote the suburbs.

Downtown. I don't even live in the 'burbs - but just riding a bit south of the downtown core by about 2 miles means more often becoming an "obstacle" to motor vehicle operators. Downtown I can keep up with and get around stopped traffic. The only time I really feel the same in my part of town is when construction slows things down. So bring on the construction!

I have no frame of reference for comparison. I live in a semi-rural area. I feel safe on my commute. I've not ridden in a city, personally I would be more concerned/worried abut the traffic in the city. The population in the closest town is about 7,600 (2000 census). Which is also the largest in the area and the county seat.

Pretty tough call, if you ask me. The city has far more dangers, but they are constant dangers that rarely hide from you. In the suburbs the dangers are fewer, but faster and less predictable. The two require different skills and different strategies. The one you're less familiar with will be more dangerous. In my own case... I can't make the call.

Having commuted in many places over the last 3+ decades, IMO it depends upon the city or burb and the person doing the riding...so gross generalizations are pointless.

...But fun!

Well, the only time we've cycled downtown we didn't know where we were going and were rather distracted looking around... however we were pleasantly surprised at how the traffic treated us and the speed. Easily kept up with traffic, and everyone just changed lanes and went around us.

City: Glass \ Holes
Suburbs: *******s

Seriously......