BIKEWAYS AND CYCLIST SAFETY by John Forester This is in response to questions about why bikeways are less safe than roads. Accident Pattern Accidents to cyclists occur in the following pattern: Falls 44% Collision with moving motor vehicle 18% Collision with moving bicycle 17% Collision with moving dog 8% Collision with parked car 4% Bicycle mechanical failure 3% Collision with pedestrian 1% Other 5% Collisions with moving motor vehicles in urban areas occur in the following pattern: Cyclist on proper side runs stop sign 9.3% Motorist turning left hits cyclist headon 7.6% Motorist restarting from stop sign hits wrong-way cyclist 6.8% Cyclist turns left in front of overtaking car 6.1% Cyclist hit during traffic signal clearance interval 5.9% Motorist turns right 4.8% Cyclist exits residential driveway 4.3% Motorist restarts from stop sign 4.2% Cyclist exits commercial driveway 3.9% Cyclist on sidewalk turns to exit driveway 3.0% Wrong-way cyclist runs stop sign 2.6% Wrong-way cyclist hit headon 2.6% Motorist exiting commercial driveway hits cyclist on sidewalk 2.4% Uncontrolled intersection collision 2.2% Motorist exits commercial driveway 2.1% Cyclist runs red light 2.1% Cyclist turns left from curb lane, hits car from opposite direction 2.1% Motorist turns right on red, hits wrong-way cyclist 1.9% Motorist overtaking, does not see lawful cyclist 1.9% Motorist exiting commercial driveway, hits wrong-way cyclist 1.5% Motorist turning right hits wrong-way cyclist 1.5% These data are taken from the data sheets of Cross's study of car-bike collisions and are reported in my book *Bicycle Transportation*. AIM OF BIKEWAYS The design of bikeways is intended to reduce the 1.9% of the 18% (equals 0.3%) of accidents to cyclists that are caused by motorists hitting lawful cyclists from behind while overtaking them. ACTUAL EFFECT OF BIKEWAYS ON CAR-BIKE CONFLICTS Practical bikeway designs in urban areas not only do not reduce any other type of accident to cyclists, but they make the existing conflicts between cars and bikes more difficult to manage. Bike paths alongside roadways cause cyclists to ride closer to driveways, with shorter sight distance and less shy distance. Bike paths alongside roadways cause cyclists to cross intersections where they are more likely to be hit by right- turning cars, by left-turning cars, and by cars from side streets. In each case, the parties have less convenient viewing angles, shorter sight distances, and shorter escape distances. Cyclists who wish to turn left are faced with the humanly impossible task of looking in all directions at once and yielding to traffic from all directions at one time. Two-way bike paths alongside roadways multiply these difficulties by having them caused by cyclists moving in the wrong direction, which greatly increases the difficulty of motorists in avoiding them. Bike lanes in the roadway cause the same difficulties with right- turning motorists as do bike paths, and the same difficulties for left-turning cyclists. While cyclists may disobey the bike-lane stripe to make left turns, the stripe discourages them from doing so and encourages motorists to believe that cyclists must stay to the right of the stripe. EFFECT OF BIKEWAYS ON THE TYPE OF TRAFFIC THAT CYCLISTS ENCOUNTER Cyclists on the roadway typically encounter well disciplined traffic that moves in orderly ways. Cyclists on bike lanes encounter the same traffic, but when turning right it is confused by the presence of the bike lane and has a greater tendency to swerve across the bike lane instead of merging through. Cyclists on paths find that they ride in a traffic of pedestrians, children, pets and poorly behaved cyclists that move in chaotic fashion. EFFECT OF BIKEWAYS ON THE RULES OF THE ROAD The rules of the road prescribe an orderly set of movements for drivers of vehicles that can be carried out by normal persons. The rules of the road for drivers of vehicles fairly allocate responsibilities and rights in ways that make sense to drivers and agree with the ways their minds, senses, bodies and vehicles operate. Adding bikeways and bikeway rules to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles complicates the system so that nobody knows who has which responsibilities or which rights. For example, with a cyclist on a bikeway to the right of a right- turning motorist, who has the right of way? These are not situations that can be decided by a legislature, as if just making a law would solve the problem, because the situation itself defies solution by normal standards. Human beings cannot operate safely in these situations because the situations demand more of them than they can do. In any case, the typical situation is to require the cyclists to yield the right of way and delay, merely because the bikeway has created a more dangerous situation than existed before. This is particularly obvious in the case of the traffic signals with special cyclist phases that are used in Europe. These signals delay cyclists to keep them from moving in conflict with cars, when if the cyclists were not on bikeways they could move without coming into conflict with cars. EFFECT OF BIKEWAYS ON THE NUMBER OF CONFLICT SITUATIONS To make a trip from arbitrary origin to arbitrary destination in the typical urban area requires that cyclists cross a certain amount of traffic, the traffic that crosses their path. Practical urban bikeways do not reduce the amount of crossing traffic. They also make it more difficult to handle. They either cross the traffic midblock, where it is more dangerous than at intersec- tions, or they cross at or adjacent to intersections, where they make it more dangerous still. If the bikeways run on low-traffic streets, as is frequently recommended, they have fewer traffic signals to protect the cyclists from intersection conflicts than if they ran on high-traffic streets. If bikeways run on low- traffic streets they may reduce the amount of turning conflicts simply because there is less traffic to turn, although this has not been demonstrated, but they lack the turning lanes that make turning traffic much safer by changing swerves across to merging throughs. SUMMARY Practical urban bikeways, even if they worked perfectly, could not do much to reduce accidents to cyclists because they are aimed at only 0.3% of accidents to cyclists. In fact, they somewhat increase the number of conflicts that cause car-bike collisions and greatly increase the difficulty of handling them, while also, for paths, greatly increasing the number of bike-ped conflicts. JForester@cup.portal.com John Forester 726 Madrone Ave 408-734-9426 Sunnyvale CA 94086 USA