IN MY OPINION BICYCLES VS. VEHICLES Steering toward safer streets for cycling

BYLINE: JENNIFER DILL and LYNN WEIGAND, Special to The Oregonian

SECTION: Editorial; Pg. B05

LENGTH: 585 words

Portland is well-known as a bicycling community. We've earned that reputation with our miles of bike lanes, boulevards and trails, numerous bike shops, rush-hour congestion on bike lanes at the bridges and even bike-through windows at coffee houses. Biking is a great way to combat the rising rates of obesity and inactivity in this country.

Even in this bike-friendly town, it's easy to find an excuse not to ride --weather, time constraints, laziness --but fearing for one's life shouldn't be among them. Unfortunately, the recent fatal accidents involving Portland cyclists and vehicles may discourage riding at a time when we should be getting more people on bikes, not fewer. Is cycling in Portland getting more dangerous? What does the research tell us?

First, there is safety in numbers. Data from California and Europe show that a cyclist's or pedestrian's chance of being hit by a car goes down 66 percent when there are twice as many cyclists or pedestrians in a community. These findings are echoed in Portland, where, despite recent tragedies, the number of bicycle crashes and fatalities has remained about the same since 1991, while the number of cyclists has more than tripled.

Second, engineering solutions can improve safety. Studies of intersections in Denmark, Canada and Sweden have found that painting or raising the area where cyclists are to ride through an intersection can reduce conflicts with motorists. A Davis, Calif., study found that the safety benefits of adding a separate traffic signal phase for bicyclists more than outweighed the cost of the extra delay for drivers.

Still, there is more work to be done. Increasing safety is a key factor in getting more people on bikes. Our recent study of Portlanders found that "too much traffic" was the number one reason for not riding more. People living in neighborhoods with well-connected, low-traffic streets (such as inner Southeast Portland) were more likely to bicycle for transportation.

And there is still a lot we don't know. While engineering has been shown to improve safety, fewer studies have evaluated the safety benefits of education and enforcement. Findings may also differ in the U.S., where we haven't implemented strategies on the same scale as Copenhagen and Amsterdam. It's no surprise that bike boxes at a single Portland intersection are often ignored by drivers when they rarely see them, don't learn about them in driver's education courses and aren't tested on them to get a license.

What do we need to do to make Portland and other U.S. cities safe for cyclists? We need credible and conclusive evidence about the effect of roadway designs on safety. We need to train the current and next generation of planners, engineers and designers to integrate all modes into our street network. We need to understand what types of policies and education programs are most effective in promoting attitudes and behavioral changes among cyclists and drivers.

Most importantly, we need to share this information far and wide to make lasting changes. The Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation was launched at Portland State University last summer to address these needs. With partners in the community, we hope to become a resource and a catalyst for positive change to make the streets safer for everyone.

Jennifer Dill is an associate professor and director of the Center for Transportation Studies at Portland State University. Lynn Weigand is director of the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation at PSU.

LOAD-DATE: November 27, 2007

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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