Re: Montreal - Bike paths reduce injuries

Risk of injury for bicycling on cycle tracks versus in the street
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February 11, 2011 - Published by group.bmj.com
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http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2011/02/02/ip.2010.028696.full.pdf

Bicycling could address obesity, cancer, stroke, diabetes, asthma,
mortality and pollution;1 2 however, the bicycling environment is
a limiting factor. The predominant bicycle facilities in The
Netherlands and Denmark are cycle tracks, or bicycle paths along
streets that are physically separated from motor traffic,
bicycle-exclusive and with a parallel sidewalk.3  Due to the
separation from vehicles afforded by 29 000 km of cycle tracks
in The Netherlands plus other initiatives,4 27% of Dutch trips are
by bicycle, 55% are women, and the bicyclist injury rate is
0.14 injured/million km.5 In the USA, 0.5% of commuters bicycle to
work, only 24% of adult cyclists are women,6 and the injury rate of
bicyclists is at least 26 times greater than in The Netherlands.5
The chief obstacle to bicycling, especially for women,7 children8
and seniors9 is perceived danger of vehicular traffic. This perceived
danger from cars appears to be real,10 as corroborated by survey
participants who prefer cycle tracks over roads.11

Cycle track construction has been hampered in the USA by engineering
guidance in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials (AASHTO) ‘Guide for the development of bicycle facilities’12
which cautions against building two-way paths along, but physically
separated from, a parallel road. AASHTO states that sidewalk bikeways are
unsafe and implies the same about shared-use paths parallel to roads,
listing numerous safety concerns and permitting their use only in
special situations. Cycle tracks, which can be one or two-way and
resemble shared-use paths, are not mentioned in the AASHTO bike guide.
A longstanding, and yet not rigorously proved, philosophy in the USA has
suggested instead that ‘bicyclists fare best when they behave as, and
are treated as, operators of vehicles.’13 The details about cycle tracks
in the Dutch bicycle design manual CROW3 and crash rate comparisons
between the USA and The Netherlands 5 have been dismissed by vehicular
cycling proponents,14 with arguments of nontransferability to the American
environment. Cycle tracks have been controversial, especially due to
conflicting studies with warnings of increased crash rates.15 The warnings,
which in the USA result in striped bike lanes but not cycle tracks, come
without any substantial study of the safety of North American cycle tracks.
Using existing crash and injury data from Montreal, Canada, a city with
a network of cycle tracks in use for more than 20 years, this study
compared bicyclists’ injury and crash rates with published data and
bicyclists’ injury rates on cycle tracks versus in the street.  [MORE]


On 2/10/2011 5:57 AM, MH wrote:
> Bike paths reduce injuries: study
> Risk 28 per cent lower than riding in traffic
> By MICHELLE LALONDE, The Gazette
> February 10, 2011 5:02 AM
> http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bike+paths+reduce+injuries+study/4255360/story.html