Study: protected bike lanes really do increase biking

Luckily, we have a cutting-edge technology that can solve this problem: protected bike lanes.

These are different from the mere stripes of paint that distinguish most bike lanes — they’re physically separated from the street by a curb or barrier, and are often called cycle tracks.

Using video cameras, the researchers — from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities — found that bicycle traffic on all eight of the streets increased dramatically after the lanes were installed, by anywhere from 21 to 171 percent.

Now, some of these cyclists might have been already riding their bikes — and had just been traveling on different streets. But when 2,283 of the cyclists in these lanes were surveyed, 10 percent of them said they would have taken another mode of travel (i.e. car, public transit, by foot, etc.) if the lane hadn’t been built. Another 1 percent said they wouldn’t have taken the trip at all. Here’s the split by site:

In addition, 25 percent of the bikers surveyed said the new lanes made them choose cycling as a form of transportation more often. This figure was even higher among women — which is especially promising, as women currently account for a disproportionately low number of bicyclists, something bike advocates want to change.

The researchers also asked the bikers about their comfort level with the idea of cycling in different types of bike lanes: physically-separated ones, as well as painted ones.

The second, third, and fourth rows in this graph show different types of physical separation, while the others show varieties of painted lanes:

Physically separated lanes are more expensive to build. But if the goal is to get more people comfortable with the idea of biking, they seem to be more effective.

That conclusion is also supported by what the researchers found when they surveyed residents of the streets where the bike lanes were built, who didn’t necessarily bike themselves. 63 percent of them agreed with the statement “I would be more likely to ride a bicycle if motor vehicles and bicycles were physically separated by a barrier.”

The survey also asked local residents and drivers about how they felt regarding the new physically-protected lanes.

Bike lanes are most often controversial because they eliminate space for street parking. And 44 percent of the motorists did say the lanes negatively impacted their ability to find parking, with 50 percent of the residents saying their neighborhoods became worse places for driving.

But at the same time, 53 percent of drivers felt the lanes made cyclists more predictable and safer, by taking bikes off the street.

Perhaps more importantly, the residents saw the physically-separated bike lanes as improvements for their neighborhoods as a whole, even if they made it harder to park. 56 percent said they made their streets work better for all parties involved (compared with 26 who said they made them work less well) and 43 percent of the residents said their neighborhoods became more desirable to live in (compared to 14 percent who said less desirable).

In total, 91 percent of residents supported physically separating bikes from cars, and 76 percent supported more bike lanes after experiencing one on their own street.

Further reading:

Correction: this post was previously unclear that all of the lanes in the new study were physically-separated ones.