Street typology and bicyclist safety : a systems approach
Name
703227153-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
7.51 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
52743023708851b7aa66f488265d8ace
Author(s)
Minikel, Eric Vallabh
Advisor(s)
Joseph Ferreira.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Cycling is an attractive transportation mode but has not attained a large mode share in the United States, in part because it is correctly perceived as dangerous. Much literature on cyclist safety and the built environment has focused on bicycle facilities such as bike lanes, while fewer studies have addressed route choice, specifically side streets versus arterials. The cities of Berkeley, CA and Cambridge, MA have pursued opposite strategies, Berkeley creating “bicycle boulevards” out of residential side streets while Cambridge has added bike lanes to major arterial roads. I hypothesize that side streets are safer than arterials regardless of which street has been treated for cyclists, both in terms of collision rate and fraction of collisions that are severe. For each city, I use cyclist count data with police-reported bicycle-motor vehicle collision data to compute relative collision rates for pairs of parallel streets that are alternate routes to reach the same destinations. In a detailed analysis of Berkeley I find that bicycle boulevards have categorically lower collision rates than arterials, with no difference in severity. I demonstrate, with very limited data, how to apply the same methodology to Cambridge and find results somewhat suggestive that side streets have lower collision rates than arterials. I highlight shortcomings in current data collection practices that make this research difficult.
Description
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (S. M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2010.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-100).
Subjects
Urban Studies and Planning.
Civil and Environmental Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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