CASE STUDY NATIONAL

A study was conducted on the on-street bicycle lanes on New York City streets which had been installed prior to 2007 to determine the whether they had an impact on crash rates. They collected police reports on crashes before and after the installation. They found that the addition of bicycle lanes did not increase crash rates even with the lanes encouraging a new form of transportation to conflict with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. In fact, it was found that there was a decrease in crash rates where bicycle lanes were installed. In most cases they saw roughly 30 percent decrease in all crash types along the roadway segment. At intersections overall accidents went down by 18 percent however, some pedestrian and bicycle crashes did show an increase in crash rates likely related to the increase in use of these bicycle facilities.