Bike Facilities Report: Protected Bike Lanes a "Resounding Success"

I wrotes:
On 8/5/2014 10:14 AM, jbeattie wrote:
http://bikeportland.org/2014/06/02/g...e-lanes-106714

Yep. Very heavy on "perceived" safety, i.e. polling people riding,
polling people driving, asking "Do you think this is nice?" and
recording the expected "yes" answers - as in, "Oooh, it's innovative!"

The actual data seems to consist of just 144 hours of video. No crashes
in almost a week! It's wonderful!

Here's a link to more discussion of that pro-cycletrack paper:
http://john-s-allen.com/blog/

OTOH, these papers...

Jensen S, Rosenkilde C & Jensen N, Road safety and perceived risks of
cycle facilities in Copenhagen, a summary of three reports for the City
of Copenhagen, 2008

Jensen S, Bicycle Tracks and Lanes: a Before-After Study, a paper for
the City of Copenhagen from TRB 87th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C.,
January 2008

... report a much more thorough investigation of cycletracks. They
measured usage rates and crash rates over several years before and after
the installation of cycletracks. (Unlike certain North American
researchers, who compared parallel - and blatantly different - streets
to compare, Jensen's data was for the same streets prior to, then after,
the installation of cycletracks.)

And their findings? Much higher crash rates (per user) afterwards, so
that there was no doubt that the cycletracks raised the danger level.

However, it's interesting to note that the bicyclists still _felt_ safer
on the cycletracks, even though the data clearly showed they were more
at risk! This is the "Ooh, they've done something special for us!"
mentality.

And more from the cycletrack promotion industry:

http://urbantimes.co/2014/06/bike-la...crease-biking/
"Bike lanes really do increase biking!!!" Gosh, look at all the blue
and purple in that second bar graph! I guess it's very impressive! But,
um, what were they actually saying?

Hmm. OK the first bar graph tells us that bicycling really isn't very
dangerous at all compared to walking or motoring. Son of a gun, someone
else was saying the same thing. And just think how safe it would be if
people rode competently! (Oh, there's the "head injury" thing - because
Big Helmet has successfully conflated those scrapes and bumps with
serious brain injuries in most people's minds. Unfortunately, we won't
be able to fix that for a long while.)

But what are all the numbers on the blue and purple bar graph? Ah,
people riding in "protected" cycle tracks. Wow, they asked them what
they'd be doing without the "innovative" and weird facility. Cool!

Oh. Wait. Most of them - the purple bars - would be riding a bike on
that very same street anyway. And most of the rest - the blue bars -
would have been riding anyway, but on a different street. So that
confirms the suspicion that special facilities mostly shift bicycling
from one street to another.

There are those folks making up the orange bars, who say they would have
traveled by a different mode. So golly, we did get _them_ out of their
cars! ... or no, wait: We got some of them out of the buses and rail
systems. And we got some of them to stop walking.

It begins to look like the headline is pretty much backwards. These
cycle tracks didn't really increase biking very much, and some of the
increase comes from other benign transportation modes.

There is that last bar graph, though. Hey, at least we can get people
to say they like them!

So cycle tracks are not needed, because biking is very safe (and
actually safer if you don't use them). And they don't get very many
people to substitute a bike trip for a car trip. But golly, we can get
the answers we want if we phrase our questions just right.

So let the construction begin! Turn on the money faucets!

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

I wrotes:
On 8/5/2014 10:14 AM, jbeattie wrote:
http://bikeportland.org/2014/06/02/g...e-lanes-106714

Yep. Very heavy on "perceived" safety, i.e. polling people riding,
polling people driving, asking "Do you think this is nice?" and
recording the expected "yes" answers - as in, "Oooh, it's innovative!"

The actual data seems to consist of just 144 hours of video. No crashes
in almost a week! It's wonderful!

Here's a link to more discussion of that pro-cycletrack paper:
http://john-s-allen.com/blog/

OTOH, these papers...

Jensen S, Rosenkilde C & Jensen N, Road safety and perceived risks of
cycle facilities in Copenhagen, a summary of three reports for the City
of Copenhagen, 2008

Jensen S, Bicycle Tracks and Lanes: a Before-After Study, a paper for
the City of Copenhagen from TRB 87th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C.,
January 2008

... report a much more thorough investigation of cycletracks. They
measured usage rates and crash rates over several years before and after
the installation of cycletracks. (Unlike certain North American
researchers, who compared parallel - and blatantly different - streets
to compare, Jensen's data was for the same streets prior to, then after,
the installation of cycletracks.)

And their findings? Much higher crash rates (per user) afterwards, so
that there was no doubt that the cycletracks raised the danger level.

However, it's interesting to note that the bicyclists still _felt_ safer
on the cycletracks, even though the data clearly showed they were more
at risk! This is the "Ooh, they've done something special for us!"
mentality.

And more from the cycletrack promotion industry:

http://urbantimes.co/2014/06/bike-la...crease-biking/
"Bike lanes really do increase biking!!!" Gosh, look at all the blue
and purple in that second bar graph! I guess it's very impressive!
But, um, what were they actually saying?

Hmm. OK the first bar graph tells us that bicycling really isn't very
dangerous at all compared to walking or motoring. Son of a gun,
someone else was saying the same thing. And just think how safe it
would be if people rode competently! (Oh, there's the "head injury"
thing - because Big Helmet has successfully conflated those scrapes
and bumps with serious brain injuries in most people's minds.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to fix that for a long while.)

But what are all the numbers on the blue and purple bar graph? Ah,
people riding in "protected" cycle tracks. Wow, they asked them what
they'd be doing without the "innovative" and weird facility. Cool!

Oh. Wait. Most of them - the purple bars - would be riding a bike on
that very same street anyway. And most of the rest - the blue bars -
would have been riding anyway, but on a different street. So that
confirms the suspicion that special facilities mostly shift bicycling
from one street to another.

There are those folks making up the orange bars, who say they would
have traveled by a different mode. So golly, we did get _them_ out of
their cars! ... or no, wait: We got some of them out of the buses and
rail systems. And we got some of them to stop walking.

It begins to look like the headline is pretty much backwards. These
cycle tracks didn't really increase biking very much, and some of the
increase comes from other benign transportation modes.

There is that last bar graph, though. Hey, at least we can get people
to say they like them!

So cycle tracks are not needed, because biking is very safe (and
actually safer if you don't use them). And they don't get very many
people to substitute a bike trip for a car trip. But golly, we can
get the answers we want if we phrase our questions just right.

So let the construction begin! Turn on the money faucets!

That was more or less how I interpreted the "paper": a fluff piece with
no indication that anything significant was accomplished. About as
useful as a survey that answers the burning question: can half-assed
surveys make us feel we learned something?


--
Joe Riel

On Saturday, August 9, 2014 8:17:25 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

[his polished spiel]

Count your blessings.