The Effect of Increased Bicyclist Volumes on Individualized Bicyclist st Risk

摘要

Little is known about the relationship between the number of bicyclists on a roadwayand the number of crashes involving bicyclists. However, studies from Europe havefound that with increased ridership comes increased safety in the form of a reduction inthe number of crashes per cyclist. Our study examines whether these trends can also befound in the U.S., to what extent does this hypothesis hold, and what other factors mightbe playing a role in the results. We conducted this research in Boulder, Colorado usingaverage cyclists per peak hour based on turning movement counts on corridors with bothhigh and low bicycle traffic and related that to five years of bicyclist crash data. The datasuggests that while bicycle crashes do typically increase with motor-vehicle volumes andbicycle volumes, the crashes per bicyclist decrease with bicycle volume. In other words,more bicyclists on the road can help reduce the crash risk of each bicyclist.