See if you can spot the problem (from montrealgazette.com):
A 2003 study published in the Injury Prevention Journal by Peter Lyndon Jacobsen concluded: “A motorist is less likely to collide with a person walking or bicycling if more people walk or bicycle. Policies that increase the numbers of people walking and bicycling appear to be an effective route to improving the safety of people walking and bicycling.”
But some policies/infrastructures that increase numbers of cyclists also increase the number of accidents and other problems.
I believe that more bicyclists on the road increases safety. That seems logical to me.
So how do you increase participation?
I think David Hembrow makes an excellent argument for a fully-separated and superior bicycle highway system based on the Dutch model.
We’re never going to build such a thing in the U.S. We are going to build more greenways here in Springfield. These linear parks, however, are primarily meant for recreation. That’s OK. They can still be used for utility trips and commuting once we build a few more connections.
What we need to do is exactly what we are doing:
- Creating The Link.
- Improving the Bicycle Route System with wayfinding signs and sharrows.
- Adopting street-scaping policies that calm traffic.
- Promoting bicycling through the efforts of the STAR Team (website coming soon).
And we ought to be helped along by the price of gas soon enough.