Trifusion

https://m.theatlanticcities.com/commu...ies-half/3654/

Interesting article ... local bike groups here have actually opposed Segregated lanes proposing bike driver licensing instead.

Greg

shepherdsflock

Bike driver license? Keep your bike groups wherever it is you live, I don't want them coming here! I ride my bike to save money, not to be taxed for the privilege of riding it. They just started marking out bike lanes in a few places in my city a few years ago, and I like them. We only have a few, but if your commute happens to include an area where they exist, they are nice.

Andy_K 

+1 Sounds like you've got some double agents infiltrating the advocacy group. Around here it's usually the anti-cycling drivers who suggest licensing.

The chart in the link looks fishy. Why would a bike-only path be less safe than a cycle track, and why would a local street that's a designated bike route with traffic calming be less safe than a local street that's a designated bike route without traffic calming? Sounds like a small sample being influenced by other factors to me. That's not to say that I doubt the safety benefits of a cycle track.

gerv 

Cyclists often do not support segregated bike lanes because of the way they are often implemented. Where's there adjacent parked cars, the lane can become an area where you are just waiting for a door to open.

Still, I've seen very successful implementations, some with a buffer zone between lane and parked car.

I can also believe that segregated lanes (particularly where there's a solid curb or other device) would be safer.

Many cyclists still believe they should be out in the lane. This probably worked ok in some traffic situations, particularly when there weren't that many cyclists. But if we want to scale up cycling traffic, lane sharing isn't likely to support all those new cyclists.

jrickards

Although my home town may not be as bike friendly as some others, it has improved, including the "installation" of bike paths (painted lines to the right of the road against the curb/sidewalk). My commuting tends not to take me on any of those but I do know that when I want to make a left turn, I will (safely) move into the left turning lane (or to the left of the single lane) and make the turn from there. A physically separated bike lane would force me to get off my bike and walk like a pedestrian to make the left turn, not convenient as far as I am concerned.

For young or learning bikers/commuters or on paths following major roads, I can see a dedicated and physically separated bike lane but for accomplished riders/commuters like most of us, I would rather ride like a vehicle than a pedestrian.

Leisesturm

As a car free cyclist I have to be able to ride everywhere, not just where bike lanes have been created. Its one thing to stripe off 32" of the righmost area of a road and call it a bike lane, its completely another to build barricades to segregate traffic and yet another order of magnitude more complex to construct a dedicated greenway for cyclists, runners, etc. Those kinds of projects are worthy but they are not practical solutions to a majority of bicycle commuters problems. They think they want segregated roadways, what they really want... er... need, is more driver awareness of bicycles and increased and enforced accountability when and if a driver hurts a cyclist through ignorance.

In Europe, road tests are not taken on closed courses. You drive out there in traffic which will include cyclists. You FAIL immediately if you do not yield to a cyclist no matter what the cyclist was doing was the right thing or the wrong thing. You can also expect to lose your license for a long time, maybe for good if you kill a cyclist and you were found at fault. It is nearly impossible to even find a motorist at fault for killing a cyclist here since not yielding, speeding, and what or where the cyclist was doing are not significant to the charges.

A cyclist above has it exactly right. I ride to SAVE money. Expensive infrastructure just for the use of cyclists? BAD IDEA. An answer to a question no one should ask. We can use the roads as they are, possibly with minor enhancements, i.e. left turn arrows that will operate even when 'only' a cyclist is present at the sensing loop.

H

Trifusion

Cycle Track in the study is a fully segragated lane, not what most us think of. The cycle groups here were quoting the Palo Alto studies which this new study proves were flawed and wrong. This new study is huge relative to all others and shows a segragated lane is 10 times safer than with traffic. It's based on patients in hospitals which I found to be the most objective data.

I was shocked when cyclists here would quote the Palo Alto studies and I'm glad common sense has been proven now not someone's pet project to licience bike drivers.

greg

spare_wheel

an n of 10 is not huge. the study also did not clarify how they normalized for length or number of intersections. they also failed to test whether the cycle track odds ratio was significantly different from the others (the confidence intervals suggest not). this study failed to even use basic statistics to validate their results (chi square test).

JPprivate

I am not sure if I understand all these comments. The study is one of those studies that state the obvious. If you're removed from vehicles with a mass of thousands of pounds you are safer than if you ride in the middle of them. Right? Even if they are poorly design (gerv) I am rather hit by a door, fall off the bike than getting hit by a door, fall of the bike and get run over by a semi.

neil

I'll confess to not being a statistician, but there was definitely some math involved, and I feel like you're just writing off something that you disagree with without much thought.

Also, where do you get n=10? There were 690 participants.

For those interested, more detailed information is available from the UBC team https://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/i...he-bice-study/.

spare_wheel

the n of 10 was for cycle tracks. the authors also never directly state whether the small number of cycle tracks studied were *SIGNIFICANTLY* safer than the other significant categories. imo, the research coming from jensen et al. in denmark is far less biased and suggests that unsignaled cycles tracks (virtually all the cycle tracks in this study were unsignaled) are less safe than bike lanes. unless there is sufficient funding to build safe cycle tracks and acommodate their growth/maintenance other forms of infrastucture are IMO a better choice (e.g. buffered bike lanes).

spare_wheel

there is a substantial body of research suggesting that unsignaled cycles tracks increase risk. in the netherlands cycle paths are mandated to have separate crossing infrastructure for bikes. in denmark there is now a huge push to signalize cycle tracks due to safety issues.

unterhausen

if you aren't exposed to those behemoths at every intersection, I would say you are right. If you have to cross other traffic, they have just removed overtaking accidents. Granted, those tend to be the most severe, but they are also somewhat rare.

Tim199

It's easy to be lied to with statistics if you don't know what to look out for to avoid it. I didn't go read the study to see if he is correct, but spare_wheel made logical arguments that are statistically sound and reasonable. He certainly isn't writing it off without thought. If you don't know enough statistics to evaluate his arguments however, you are in danger of doing that.

Statistics is probably the most important math for most people to learn.

Dahon.Steve

Folks, I somehow think that study was funded by some very wealthy pro-motoring anti-cycling group!