Vox - Biking in the 21st centuryhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2014-09-08T13:30:03-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/55795612014-09-08T13:30:03-04:002014-09-08T13:30:03-04:00Bike lanes have actually sped up car traffic in New York City
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<img alt="Second Avenue's bike lane." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xgYzyolNez9a2IuOxYOrw0_TDBM=/5x0:2046x1531/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/38204030/2979920567_a7286be54f_o.0.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Second Avenue's bike lane. | <a href='(https://www.flickr.com/photos/ifmuth/2979920567)'>Ian Freimuth</a></figcaption>
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<p>Since 2007, New York City has added <a target="_blank" href="http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/09/03/trottenberg-promises-to-expand-bike-network-keep-best-bicycling-city-crown/">31 miles</a> of protected bike lanes — that is, lanes protected by a physical barrier, such as a row of parked cars or a curb.</p>
<p><span>The main point of building protected lanes was to </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/5/5782472/study-bike-lanes-really-do-increase-biking" style="line-height: 1.5;">make biking in the city safer</a>. But when the NYC Department of Transportation <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf">recently studied</a> the impact of the lanes, they found a secondary benefit: on several different avenues in Manhattan, the lanes actually helped speed up car traffic.</p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">on columbus and 8th ave., car speeds increased significantly after bike lanes went in</q></p>
<p>The new report, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/">spotted by Eric Jaffe at CityLab</a>, found that on Columbus and 8th avenues, the time it took a car to traverse a specific distance dropped significantly after the installation of the lanes, while on 1st Avenue, it increased only slightly. <span>At the same time, rates of bicyclist injuries declined steeply on all three streets, along with Broadway, 8th, and 9th avenues.</span></p>
<p>So how did the bike lanes speed up traffic? It seems that two factors were important.</p>
<p>One is that, for the most part, driving lanes weren't actually eliminated when they bike lanes were built — they were simply narrowed. Additionally, the design of the bike lanes included a dedicated left-turn lane at most intersections, allowing cars to wait to turn left without holding up traffic.</p>
<h3>What happened to car traffic when bike lanes went in</h3>
<p>The study looked at traffic speeds for three different stretches of avenue with protected bike lanes built either in 2010 or 2011: 1st Ave. between 14th and 34th streets, 8th Ave. between 23rd and 34th streets, and Columbus Ave. between 77th and 96th streets.</p>
<p>On 8th Ave., on average, it took cars 14 percent less time to cover the 11 blocks after the bike lanes were installed. On Columbus, average travel times during rush hour dropped 35 percent.</p>
<p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="8th ave chart" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7txxZ28raXuqaqn2yMpbZgm_OG8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/688874/Screen_Shot_2014-09-08_at_10.32.56_AM.0.png">
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<p class="caption">(<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf">NYC DOT</a>)</p>
<p>On 1st Ave., the report used average taxi speeds as a proxy for traffic, and there was a very slight increase in congestion: their speeds went down, from a little over 13 miles per hour to a bit over 12.</p>
<p>The report also looked at average taxi speeds for the entire Manhattan Central Business District (an area that includes all of Manhattan up to 86th Street). On the whole, motor vehicle speeds have remained pretty much the same since 2007 — a period during which bike lanes have been installed on these three avenues and several others. It seems that the widespread creation of bike lanes certainly isn't slowing down traffic in Manhattan, and at least in a few isolated cases, is actually speeding it up.</p>
<h3>How bikes lanes speed up car traffic</h3>
<p>You might imagine that these bike lanes decreased congestion by cutting down on the number of cars on the road. But if that played a role, it was very slight: on Columbus Ave., the DOT counted cars, and saw only a very slight drop in overall volume during morning rush hour, when travel times declined by 35 percent. <span>Instead, it seems that a pair of design decisions are responsible. </span></p>
<p>One is that, in most places, creating bike lanes didn't actually require the elimination of driving lanes — they just had to be narrowed a bit.</p>
<p>Here's a diagram of 8th Ave., before and after the bike lane went in. In both cases, there are four full-time driving lanes, although they <span>had to be narrowed by a few feet to accommodate the bike lane (and a parking lane that had been for driving during morning rush hour was converted to full-time parking).</span></p>
<p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="bike lane diagram" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WxYg-_24fixkzwzfaKSzT84xAS4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/688894/Screen_Shot_2014-09-08_at_11.12.43_AM.0.png">
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<p class="caption">(<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf" style="background-color: #ffffff;">NYC DOT</a>)</p>
<p>Although <a target="_blank" href="http://vault.sierraclub.org/sprawl/articles/narrow.asp" style="line-height: 1.5;">narrower streets can slow traffic</a>, that doesn't seem to have happened here — perhaps because traffic in this area was crawling at around 11 miles per hour to begin with.</p>
<p>Instead, the narrower lanes were capable of handling just as much traffic, and one major improvement to intersection design helped them handle more, while also letting bikes travel more safely.</p>
<p>This improvement was something called a <a target="_blank" href="http://wiki.coe.neu.edu/groups/nl2011transpo/wiki/9ba2b/Pocket_Lane_Examples.html">pocket lane</a> for left-hand turns: a devoted turning lane at most intersections that takes the place of the parking lane, which <span>gets cars out of the way of moving traffic when they're making a left. </span></p>
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<img alt="left pocket lane" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2RuWDkF9Q2d1PsW5YQWX8bL7RK4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/688896/3901806062_47c79e95f8_o.0.jpg">
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<p class="caption">A left turn pocket lane on 8th Ave. (<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/satanslaundromat/3901806062">SatansLaundromat</a>)</p>
<h3>What happened to biker safety when bike lanes went in</h3>
<p>Interestingly, the pocket lanes aren't primarily designed to speed up the flow of traffic — they're designed to let bikes and cars coexist more safely. Intersections with them include specialized turn signals that alternate between letting bikes ride straight or cars turn left, so there's little chance of a car turning into a bike.</p>
<p>Data in the<span> new report confirm that this design — along with the construction of the protected bike lanes as a whole — did achieve another primary objective. In general, biking on these streets has become </span>much<span> safer.</span></p>
<p>This chart shows the number of accidents and injuries in the three years since protected lanes were completed on Broadway, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th, and Columbus Avenues, compared to the three years beforehand:</p>
<p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="bike safety chart" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0chIZ-bijJEEvt8zE6YrmycHACc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/688954/Screen_Shot_2014-09-08_at_11.48.03_AM.0.png">
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<p class="caption">(<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf" style="background-color: #ffffff;">NYC DOT</a>)</p>
<p><span>The total number of accidents that caused injuries — whether between multiple bikers, or between bikers and cars or pedestrians — declined by 17 percent, and injuries to car occupants and pedestrians declined even more significantly.</span></p>
<p>Injuries to cyclists have stayed pretty much constant, but keep in mind that this is the raw number of injuries, not the injury rate — and during the same period, biking has become significantly more popular.</p>
<p>For a rate, the DOT calculates a metric they call the New York City Cycling Risk Indicator: the number of deaths or serious injuries to cyclists divided by the total number of bikers estimated to be on the street. When you take the increase in bikers into account, the risk of death or serious injury has declined on 7 of the 8 avenues with new protected bike lanes installed:</p>
<p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="cycling risk chart" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wBXpYHnGbd4cB5yeNDiU0_MBXF8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/688964/Screen_Shot_2014-09-08_at_12.01.04_PM.0.png">
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<p class="caption">(<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf">NYC DOT</a>)</p>
<p>This could be a result of couple factors: the new protected bike lanes, but also the sheer fact that, in general, getting more bikes on the road <a style="line-height: 1.5;" href="http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm" target="_blank">seems to increase biker safety</a>.</p>
<p>In either case, though, this report comes to the happy conclusion that making city streets safer for cyclists doesn't have to slow them down for drivers. When <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bicyclist-bullies-try-to-rule-the-road-in-dc/2014/07/08/f7843560-06e3-11e4-bbf1-cc51275e7f8f_story.html" target="_blank">cycling critics rail against</a> the growth of bike lanes, this is something to keep in mind.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bike-lanes-traffic-new-yorkJoseph Stromberg2014-08-26T13:10:02-04:002014-08-26T13:10:02-04:00China's bike share system is absolutely enormous
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<img alt="A Beijing bike share station." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WpY-HbRuHmHeGqNW8YaSqTv4Irk=/0x0:4915x3686/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/37478576/450694622.0.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A Beijing bike share station. | (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption>
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<p>The growth of bike share programs is gaining momentum in the US.</p>
<p>But this growth is absolutely dwarfed by the <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1580363/china-sets-pace-bike-sharing" target="_blank">explosion of bike share programs</a> in China over the last couple of years.</p>
<p>The country now has more than 400,000 bike share bikes in operation across dozens of cities with programs, with the vast majority installed since 2012. To put this in perspective, there are an <a target="_blank" href="https://maps.google.com/maps/u/0/ms?msa=0&msid=214135271590990954041.00043d80f9456b3416ced&dg=feature">estimated 822,00 bikes</a> in operation around the world — so China has more bikes<span> than all other countries combined. </span><span>The </span><span>individual</span><span> country with the next-highest number of bikes, France, has just 45,000.</span></p>
<p>Here are the 15 countries with more than 3,000 bikes in operation, with data coming from the <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/u/0/ms?msa=0&msid=214135271590990954041.00043d80f9456b3416ced&dg=feature" target="_blank" style="background-color: #ffffff;">Bike-sharing World Map</a>, a database maintained by Russell Meddin and Paul DeMaio.</p>
<p> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="bike share countries" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MUptApNwndxrIE06JudVdCehaL4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/672346/Screen_Shot_2014-08-26_at_11.37.52_AM.0.png">
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<p><span>Early on, most bike share programs were in Europe. The French town of Rennes pioneered the first computerized system in 1998, and as late as 2008, only a single system existed outside of Europe (Washington DC's). For years, Paris had the largest system.</span></p>
<p>But over the last couple of years, China has lapped the field several times over. As its private <a target="_blank" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/the-bicycle-as-symbol-of-chinas-transformation/259177/">bicycle fleet has declined</a> — largely because more and more people can afford cars — officials have implemented bike share programs to give residents a transportation option that cuts down on traffic.</p>
<p>Nowadays, dozens of Chinese <span>cities have truly enormous programs, bigger than most other countries' systems. All told, C</span><span>hina has eight </span><i style="line-height: 1.5;">cities </i><span>with more bike share bikes than the entire United States does.</span></p>
<p><span>Here's a chart of the 30 cities worldwide that have more than 5,000 bikes in their systems (note: for cities with multiple programs, the number reflects the total number of bikes across all of them). </span><span>Of these 30 top cities, 24 are in China.</span></p>
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<img alt="bike share chart 3" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PmX3X7CpKP2GjifE6A7Qm1HC_Ag=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/673624/Screen_Shot_2014-08-26_at_12.55.55_PM.0.png">
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<p>It's not a huge mystery why China would want to invest so heavily in bike share: it has the world's largest population, is rapidly urbanizing, and is trying to cut down on traffic and pollution. What's impressive is how quickly the country has implemented enormous programs in so many different cities.</p>
<p>But if you're a fan of bike share, what is a little disheartening is how many other places that are going through the same challenges of urbanization haven't even gotten started with the programs. Both India and the entire continent of Africa have only conducted a handful of pilot studies, with zero active systems in place.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/26/6069821/bike-share-china-world-dataJoseph Stromberg2014-08-12T14:00:02-04:002014-08-12T14:00:02-04:00Not one person has died using bike share in the US
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<img alt="New York's Citi Bike program, launched in May 2013." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Cl89OOn_9WyKPRBdJcqs16sO_ww=/0x0:2039x1529/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/36842828/10564378814_4155206bbf_o.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>New York's Citi Bike program, launched in May 2013. | <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/gazeronly/10564378814'>(torbakhopper)</a></figcaption>
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<p>Today, <a target="_blank" href="http://news.yahoo.com/23-million-rides-no-deaths-u-bike-share-130952525.html" style="line-height: 1.5;">Reuters pointed out</a> an encouraging fact about the 36 bike share programs currently operating in US cities: after an estimated 23 million total rides, there has still not been a single fatality of a cyclist using bike share.</p>
<p>In some places, the bike share programs that have been rolled out over the past few years have been controversial — especially due to people being concerned about the safety problems posed by novice, often helmet-less bikers wobbling out into street traffic. This has been especially true with <span>New York's </span><a target="_blank" href="https://www.citibikenyc.com/" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">Citi Bike program</a>, with critics<span> ranting that cyclists were "</span><a target="_blank" href="http://live.wsj.com/video/opinion-death-by-bicycle/C6D8BBCE-B405-4D3C-A381-4CA50BDD8D4D.html#!C6D8BBCE-B405-4D3C-A381-4CA50BDD8D4D" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">the most important danger in the city</a><span>."</span></p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">after 23 million rides, there still hasn't been a single fatality</q></p>
<p>But as it turns out, Citi Bike — along with other bike-share programs in bustling cities like Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco — have been shockingly safe. There's no central data source for all programs, but Reuters independently confirmed with several experts that we still haven't seen a single death so far. <span>This includes some 10.3 million rides taken in New York since Citi Bike launched in May 2013, which have led to just 40 injuries that needed medical attention. </span></p>
<p><span>This isn't the first big positive safety news to come out of bike share. In June, researchers found that in five major bike share cities, </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814572/the-media-got-it-wrong-bikeshare-programs-dont-increase-head-injuries">both total injuries and head injuries that result from biking decreased</a> after the programs were introduced — despite the total number of miles biked increasing significantly.</p>
<h3>So how is bike share so safe?</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4891672/9041137765_52ea7f3349_o.jpg" class="photo" alt="9041137765_52ea7f3349_o"></p>
<p class="caption">Two bikes from Chicago's new Divvy bike share program. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagopublicradio/9041137765" style="line-height: 1.5;">WBEZ</a></p>
<p><span>Given that few bike share users wear helmets (</span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22542733">one survey</a><span> i</span>n Boston and Washington found that 19.2 percent wore them, compared with 51.4 percent of other bikers) and so many of them are relative novices, you'd think that suddenly putting thousands of them on the street would be extremely dangerous. So why hasn't anyone died — and how have injuries actually gone down?</p>
<p>One factor is the bikes themselves. They're extremely heavy, with wide tires, making it difficult for riders to get going very fast. Generally, they're also outfitted with lights (improving visibility at night) and drum brakes (which work better when wet). A slow, visible, stable bike means a safer cyclist.</p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">the number of bikers on the road is one of the most important predictors of their safety</q></p>
<p>Another factor is that, on the whole, data indicates that <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">helmets are probably less important for bike safety</a> than many people imagine. Countries that have enacted mandatory helmet laws for adults, like Australia, haven't seen substantial declines in death or injury rates from biking.</p>
<p>But these places have had declines in a different, more important factor: the total number of people who bike. And<span> </span><span>r</span><span>esearchers have consistently found that </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.transalt.org/files/news/magazine/043Summer/02provocateur.html" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">the number of bikers on the road is one of the most important predictors of their safety</a><span>. One </span><a target="_blank" href="http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/3/205.full.pdf" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">study found</a><span> that a doubling of the number of cyclists in a city is correlated with a one-third reduction in the rates of car-bike collisions.</span></p>
<p>The idea is that drivers get used to bikers as more of them enter the roads, and adapt their driving habits to become less likely to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-us">crash into them</a>. <span>In the longer-term, cities with more bikers also may be more likely to invest in </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/5/5782472/study-bike-lanes-really-do-increase-biking" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">protected bike lanes</a><span> and other infrastructure that make biking safer.</span></p>
<p>These ideas aren't proven yet — and the correlation between more bikers and fewer accidents per person could be caused by unrelated factors. But if it's true, it would go a long way towards explaining why bike share is safer than many people expected: it makes biking much, much more popular.</p>
<p><b>Further reading: </b><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-us" style="line-height: 1.5;">How and why bicycle deaths happen in the US</a></p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/12/5994879/bike-share-citi-bike-deaths-safetyJoseph Stromberg2014-08-07T09:00:02-04:002014-08-07T09:00:02-04:00How dangerous is it to use headphones on a bike?
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s72G0Fk2E4MRndD-UpNXYlm5Ch0=/0x86:2039x1615/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/36599602/9759728536_462735781d_o.0.jpg" />
<figcaption><a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/lomo54/9759728536'>(lomo54)</a></figcaption>
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<p>It's not uncommon to spot cyclists in a city riding around with earbuds crammed firmly into each ear.</p>
<p>To many people, this seems insane: city riding is dangerous to begin with, and eliminating one of your senses can only make it more perilous.</p>
<p>But others have countered <span>that most headphones don't block out all sound, that </span><span>it's not really so different from drivers listening to music in their cars.</span><span> And, they'll add, hearing </span><span>really isn't that crucial</span><span> for biking safely.</span></p>
<p>The biggest problem with resolving this argument: there's no data on bikers' accident rates that compared headphone users with the rest. <span>For what it's worth, the majority of states do not outlaw riding with headphones (although many</span><span> </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/bike/safety.htm" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">recommend against</a><span> it). Five states allow one headphone, but not both, while three others ban them entirely.</span></p>
<p><img alt="Screen_shot_2014-07-31_at_5.57.31_pm" class="photo" src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4842272/Screen_Shot_2014-07-31_at_5.57.31_PM.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Note: <a href="http://matthewnoyes.typepad.com/attorney_matthew_noyes_bl/2013/08/when-is-wearing-headphones-or-earphones-against-florida-law.html" target="_blank">there's some dispute</a> over whether Florida's headphone ban applies solely to motor vehicles, or bicycles too. <br id="1407848035614"></p>
<p>So is riding around wearing headphones actually dangerous? Here's our look at the research and common sense surrounding this issue.</p>
<h3>The argument for headphones</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4868842/4929001626_7d31b00f74_o.jpg" class="photo" alt="4929001626_7d31b00f74_o"></p>
<p class="caption">(<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/josemanuelerre/4929001626" target="_blank">José Manuel Ríos Valiente</a>)</p>
<p><span>Given that this is a safety issue that impacts a lot of people in many different countries, it's a bit surprising that there really hasn't been any rigorous scientific research into the effect of listening to headphones on biking. But one informal study, </span><a target="_blank" href="http://rideons.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/an-ear-on-the-traffic/" style="line-height: 1.5;">conducted by Australia's bike magazine RideOn</a>,<span> seems to support the idea that it might not be all that dangerous.</span></p>
<p>For the study, a pair of reporters used both a decibel meter and their own ears to do some testing. They found that a person wearing earbuds and listening to music from an iPod turned almost all the way up (playing at 87 decibels) could hear someone else calling out "passing" and a bike bell ringing from about 32 feet away. They also found that someone sitting inside a car and listening to slightly softer music (69 dB) from the car stereo couldn't hear either of these sounds.</p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">Normal earbuds don't fully mask sound, and allow a rider to hear warning sounds</q></p>
<p>Their conclusions: normal earbuds don't mask sound nearly as fully as a car's closed doors, and allow a rider to hear warning sounds from other riders. (Note that they also tested in-ear earbuds, which <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cnet.com/topics/headphones/best-headphones/earbuds/">sit inside the ear canal</a>, and found they blocked outside sounds much more fully.)</p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5;" href="http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/hearing.htm" target="_blank">Others say that</a> whether or not headphones block noise, a cyclist's sense of hearing simply isn't that important. Hearing a car approach from behind gives a biker just a few seconds of warning, and in an urban environment, distinguishing the sound of an approaching vehicle from ambient noise is extremely difficult. Safely riding a bike, they say, like driving a car, does not depend heavily on listening — which is why there are no laws banning people with hearing problems from riding.</p>
<p>Some headphone advocates go so far as to say that listening to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17450101.2013.796772#.U-KDyoBdU01" style="line-height: 1.5;">music helps bikers relax and become more attuned to their surroundings</a> — a bit like the many <a target="_blank" href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/26/music-for-surgery">surgeons who listen to music</a> while operating.</p>
<h3>The argument against headphones</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4868914/5559991654_723fba7cab_o.jpg" class="photo" alt="5559991654_723fba7cab_o"></p>
<p class="caption">(<a target="_blank" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/5559991654/in/photolist-9tjpP5-dx6mou-9tVzjz-f41Jgs-fXD6m9-8EpwmM-o7feh3-i4yN1c">Ed Yourdon</a>)<br id="1407362741505"></p>
<p>The case against headphones is more straightforward. Riding a bike in traffic is an inherently risky behavior, with <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-us">hundreds of cyclists getting killed every year in the US</a>. Taking away your second most important sense adds an unnecessary risk to biking, and can only make it more dangerous.</p>
<p>That's because listening, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/a_fine_whine/2012/11/cycling_with_headphones_is_incredibly_dumb_why_does_anyone_do_it.html">the anti-headphone crowd says</a>, can alert a cyclist to all sorts of subtle aural cues in the chaotic city riding environment: say, a car approaching from behind, another bike about to pull into a darkened intersection, or a kid or dog about to run into the street. Especially for the huge percentage of bikers who don't come to a complete stop at intersections, listening carefully is a must.</p>
<p>Finally: the benefits of wearing headphones (that is, music) apply solely to the bike rider, but the potential costs are passed on to all the pedestrians and other riders he or she might potentially hit. So riding with headphones on can be construed as not only an unnecessary risk, but a selfish unnecessary risk.</p>
<h3>Our take</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4868858/7209203662_147e0528d5_o.jpg" class="photo" alt="7209203662_147e0528d5_o"></p>
<p class="caption">(<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/midgley/7209203662" target="_blank">Adrian Midgley</a>)</p>
<p>As someone who's previously argued that bikers <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/9/5691098/why-cyclists-should-be-able-to-roll-through-stop-signs-and-ride">should be able to roll through stop signs</a> and expressed <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">skepticism about the importance of helmets</a>, I picked up this issue expecting to come down on the side of headphones being relatively safe.</p>
<p>But given the lack of any real data, I decided to test things for myself. When I did so<span> — riding around Washington, DC with listening to music for the first time ever — I was struck by how disconnected I suddenly felt</span><span> from my surroundings, far more than I'd expected.</span></p>
<p><span></span><span>Wearing a pair of earbuds revealed ways I use my ears when riding that I had no idea of. When making a right after waiting at a red light, I realized I had to look back to see if any other bikers had pulled up beside me, to ensure I wouldn't be cutting them off right when they started pedaling. On a quiet residential street, I was no longer capable of knowing whether or not a car was cruising behind me — I had to periodically turn to look. </span><span>And the whole time, I felt a strange paranoia because I might not be able to hear if anyone spoke or beeped at me.</span></p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="center">wearing earbuds revealed ways i use my ears when riding that i had no idea of</q></p>
<p><span>All these things could probably be compensated for, mainly by doing some extra glancing and turning. This was my first time wearing headphones, and I'd likely get used to doing it over time. </span><span>But the experience indicated that, at least for me, listening is a tool I unconsciously use to be more fully aware of my surroundings as I bike.</span></p>
<p>Ultimately, my personal experiment doesn't provide any firmer evidence than is already out there about bikes and headphones. There just isn't any data, one way or the other. <span>But if we weigh all possibilities, it's easy to see that the cost of being overcautious (not getting to enjoy music while riding) is much smaller than the penalty of being not cautious enough (getting injured or killed on a bike). In this case, erring on the side of caution makes sense.</span></p>
<p>One exception: wearing a single headphone. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bicycle-touring-guide.com/listening-to-music-while-cycling/" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">As others have suggested</a><span>, I also </span><span>tried riding with just one in and found that, for the most part, I could hear both my music and my surroundings. We're lucky to have two ears — and perhaps with this issue, it makes sense to split the difference.</span></p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5956899/bike-headphones-safe-dangerous-ridingJoseph Stromberg2014-06-26T12:00:04-04:002014-06-26T12:00:04-04:00Is it faster to bike, drive, or walk in your city?
<figure>
<img alt="The fastest way to get anywhere in Washington, DC." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FDPOPMc5w7qWgCMIT4Zgefo6vh4=/0x6:678x515/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/34843331/Screen_Shot_2014-06-26_at_10.56.14_AM.0.png" />
<figcaption>The fastest way to get anywhere in Washington, DC. | <a href='http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/washingtondc'>You Are Here project</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you live in a city and sometimes find yourself wondering about the fastest way to get somewhere — by bike, on foot, in a car, or using public transportation — you're in luck.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://youarehere.cc//#/maps/by-topic/best_mode_of_transportation" target="_blank">new set of interactive maps</a> by <a href="http://youarehere.cc//#/" target="_blank">You Are Here</a>, a mapping project by the MIT Media Lab, lets you click on any particular spot in your city and shows you the fastest way to get anywhere else. <span>Depending on your starting point, parts of the maps turn green (to show where walking would be fastest), yellow (for biking), blue (for transit), and red (for driving). Driving times include how long it'll generally take to find parking in each area.</span></p>
<div><span><br></span></div>
<p><b>Manhattan</b></p>
<center> <img alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-26_at_11.07.29_am" class="photo" src="http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4674711/Screen_Shot_2014-06-26_at_11.07.29_AM.png">
<p class="caption">From midtown Manhattan, 49.7 percent of the city is reached fastest by bike, 33.8 percent by public transit, and 16.2 percent by car. <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/manhattan" target="_blank">You Are Here project</a>.</p>
</center>
<p>So far, using data from Google Maps, the project has created these maps for<span> </span><a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/manhattan" target="_blank">Manhattan</a><span>, </span><a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/brooklyn" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a><span>, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5;" href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/washingtondc" target="_blank">DC</a>, <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/philadelphia" target="_blank">Philadelphia</a>, <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/cambridge" target="_blank">Cambridge</a>, <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/saltlakecity" target="_blank">Salt Lake City</a>, <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/boulder" target="_blank">Boulder</a>, <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/sanfrancisco" target="_blank">San Francisco</a>, <a style="line-height: 1.5;" href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/portland" target="_blank">Portland</a>, and <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/santamonica" target="_blank">Santa Monica</a>.</p>
<p><b>Washington, DC</b></p>
<center> <img alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-26_at_10.56.14_am" class="photo" src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4674623/Screen_Shot_2014-06-26_at_10.56.14_AM.png">
<p class="caption">From Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, 43.7 percent of the city is reached fastest by car, 36.9 percent by bike, and 19.2 by public transit. <a target="_blank" href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/washingtondc">You Are Here project</a>.</p>
</center>
<p>Looking at the maps can reveal interesting patterns in a city's design and infrastructure. There's a ton of variation by city, but by and large, the maps show show how seldom public transit is the fastest way of getting somewhere — and how often biking is. With the exception of Manhattan, most places in most of the cities are reached fastest by bike or car.</p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5;">San Francisco</b></p>
<p><img alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-26_at_10.58.31_am" class="photo" src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4674655/Screen_Shot_2014-06-26_at_10.58.31_AM.png"></p>
<p class="caption">From San Francisco's Mission District, 70 percent of the city is reached fastest by driving, and 29.6 percent by bike. <a href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/sanfrancisco" target="_blank">You Are Here project</a>.</p>
<p><span>Click through and play around with the</span><span> </span><a href="http://youarehere.cc//#/maps/by-topic/best_mode_of_transportation" target="_blank" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">full set of maps</a><span> </span><span>to explore transportation in your city.</span></p>
<p><span></span><b style="line-height: 1.5;">Philadelphia</b></p>
<p><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4674751/Screen_Shot_2014-06-26_at_11.14.21_AM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-26_at_11.14.21_am"></p>
<p class="caption">From Philadelphia's Center City, 67.5 percent of the city is reached fastest by car, 27.5 percent by bike, and 4.9 percent by public transit. <a target="_blank" href="http://youarehere.cc//p/bestmode/philadelphia">You Are Here project</a>.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/26/5845496/whats-the-fastest-way-to-get-somewhere-in-your-city-these-maps-tellJoseph Stromberg2014-06-16T15:00:09-04:002014-06-16T15:00:09-04:00Bikeshare programs don't increase head injuries
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yN-zG_k9rRAtO_g8I0f2Y5PwPK0=/0x0:2039x1529/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/34417751/183115115.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Spencer Platt/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><span>Last week, lots of </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/12/321332737/brain-injuries-rose-in-cities-where-bike-sharing-rolled-out" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">media outlets </a>reported<span> that bikeshare programs — which tend to encourage biking without a helmet — led to an increase in head injuries.</span></p>
<p>But that claim was wrong.</p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">head injuries have actually fallen in cities with bikeshare programs</q></p>
<p>As <a target="_blank" href="http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/06/13/wapo-is-wrong-head-injuries-are-down-not-up-in-bike-share-cities/">pointed out at StreetsBlog</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/06/head-injuries-didnt-rise-in-bike-share-cities-they-actually-fell/372811/" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">CityLab</a><span>, head injuries have actually </span><i style="line-height: 1.5;">fallen </i><span>in cities with bikeshare programs.</span></p>
<p>So why the confusion? Everyone was focusing on a <a target="_blank" href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302012">new study</a> in <span>the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5;">American Journal of Public Health. </i><span>That study looked at five cities that had adopted bikeshare programs and compared them to control cities. The researchers found that overall injuries for bicyclists went <i>down</i> by about 28 percent in the bikeshare cities (and head injuries went down 14 percent). But head injuries as a proportion of all bike injuries went up.</span></p>
<p>The first finding is more important — but it was largely ignored in the initial round of coverage. Even though bikeshare programs encourage more people to bike without a helmet, the overall number of head injuries by bicyclists declined. That's especially notable given that the number of miles biked went up in bikeshare cities.</p>
<p><span>Here's a full explanation of the study — and how it became so distorted.</span></p>
<h3>What the study actually found</h3>
<p><span>The study, by a team of researchers from Washington State University and elsewhere, looked at head injuries in five cities that started bikeshare programs (DC, Minneapolis, </span><span>Montreal, Boston, and Miami Beach), comparing them to five cities that didn't (</span><span>New York, Milwaukee, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Vancouver).</span></p>
<p><span>Using emergency room data, they tracked injury rates for the two years that preceded the introduction of each city's program and compared them to the year that came afterward.</span></p>
<p>One of their findings — which was featured prominently in the <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302012" target="_blank">abstract</a>, the <a href="http://hsnewsbeat.uw.edu/story/communal-cycling-linked-more-head-injuries" target="_blank">university press release</a>, and subsequent <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/12/cities-with-bike-share-programs-see-rise-in-cyclist-head-injuries/" target="_blank">media coverage</a> — was that in the bikeshare cities, head injuries constituted about 42 percent of all bike accident injuries before the programs were introduced, and about 50 percent afterward. In the control cities, on the other hand, the figure dipped slightly, from 38 to 36 percent.</p>
<p><img alt="Bb1e3e67e" class="photo" src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4623065/bb1e3e67e.jpg"></p>
<p class="caption">American Journal of Public Health, Graves et. al.</p>
<p>Citing <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22542733">studies</a> showing <span>bikeshare riders wear helmets at significantly lower rates (</span><span>in </span><span>Boston and Washington, 19.2 percent wore them, compared with 51.4 percent of all bikers), the researchers infer that bikeshare is part of the problem.</span></p>
<p>In the paper itself, they represented all this accurately, stating "the odds of a head injury <i>among injured bicyclists</i> increased in PBSP [public bike share program] cities after program implementation." (Emphasis mine.)</p>
<p>But in media coverage, they misrepresented the <i>percentage </i>increase as a <i>total </i>increase in head injuries. <span>"Public bike-share initiatives are great wellness initiatives," Janessa Graves, the study's lead author, </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/12/321332737/brain-injuries-rose-in-cities-where-bike-sharing-rolled-out" target="_blank" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">told NPR</a><span>. "But without providing helmets, we were concerned that we would see an increase in head injuries. And we did."</span></p>
<h3>But head injuries declined significantly when bikeshare programs were introduced</h3>
<p><span>Kay Teschke, a </span><span>University of British Columbia cycling researcher, first </span><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/kteschke/status/477463870790184960">spotted the big error</a><span> in this interpretation. </span></p>
<p><span>Yes, head injuries increased as a percentage of all bike accident injuries after bikeshare programs were rolled. But that's only because the total number of bike-related injuries dropped so dramatically — by about 28 percent on average. Head injuries fell too, just not by as much: they dropped by about 14 percent.</span></p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">to put it charitably, this seems like a strange and misguided interpretation of the data</q></p>
<p>As a rough analogy, imagine a school has a graduating class with one thousand students. Teachers implement <span>a novel teaching strategy — say, giving out flashcards for them to use — and then give them a test. On the previous test, 100 students got D's, and 100 got F's, but on the latest test, only 72 get D's, and 86 get F's.</span></p>
<p><span>The big takeaway, obviously, is that fewer students are failing, perhaps due to the flashcards. A much subtler finding is that </span><span>students who got F's constitute an increased percentage of failing students (we're counting D as a failing grade here). But </span><span>inexplicably</span><span>, that's what the researchers chose to focus on in this new study.</span></p>
<p>To put it charitably, this seems like a strange and misguided interpretation of the data (As Jaffe at CityLab put it, "they seemed to miss the forest for the trees"). A more critical view would be that the researchers went looking for evidence that bikeshare programs are dangerous, and upon failing to find any, <span>cherry-picked a relatively unimportant sub-trend and trumpeted it as decisive finding.</span></p>
<h3>So how did the bikeshare programs make biking safer?</h3>
<p><img alt="163714458" class="photo" src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4623881/163714458.jpg"></p>
<p>This is the most important and surprising question to come out of the study<span>. What makes the 28 percent decline in biking injuries (and 14 percent decline in head injuries) even more remarkable is that they happened even as people began biking dramatically more in these cities.</span></p>
<p>In DC, for instance, bikeshare members <a target="_blank" href="http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/05/22/capital-bikeshare-members-reduced-their-driving-4-4-million-miles-per-year/">rode 4.4 million miles in 2012</a>. We don't know how much of an increase this is compared to all biking (because we don't have data on total biking), but if it represented a five percent increase in miles biked, we'd expect to see at least a five percent increase in total injuries and head injuries. To see these declines means biking in DC has gotten a lot safer since bikeshare was introduced, even if a smaller percentage of bikers is wearing helmets.</p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">the most reasonable interpretation is that the programs made biking safer by putting many more bikes on the road</q></p>
<p>What could account for this surprising trend? <span>One possibility is the basic fact </span><span>that the number of bikers on the road </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1186.html#80">most strongly predicts biking safely</a> — and that helmet use <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">doesn't seem to be strongly correlated</a> with it.</p>
<p>When drivers get used to seeing cyclists everywhere, they're much less likely to hit them. Other factors (such as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/5/5782472/study-bike-lanes-really-do-increase-biking">protected bike lanes</a>) are definitely important, but bike helmets can't replicate the "safety in numbers" effect in making biking safer — any more than bulletproof vests can reduce gun violence.</p>
<p>It's impossible to determine that <span>these bikeshare programs <i>caused</i> the declines in injuries that followed them, rather than simply being correlated with them. But given everything we know about bike helmets and injuries, the most reasonable interpretation of this new data is that the programs made biking safer by putting many </span><span>more bikes on the road, even if most of their riders aren't wearing helmets.</span></p>
<p>This makes it a very good thing that most bikeshare programs don't require adults to wear helmets, and that <a target="_blank" href="http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/25754861/dallas-eliminates-helmet-rule-for-adult-bike-riders" style="line-height: 1.5;">Dallas recently eliminated its helmet law</a> in advance of a new bikeshare program to be introduced later this year.</p>
<p><b>Further reading:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">Why we shouldn't force people to wear bike helmets</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/6/5/5782472/study-bike-lanes-really-do-increase-biking">How protected bike lanes increase biking</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-us">How and why bicycle deaths happen in the US</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/9/5691098/why-cyclists-should-be-able-to-roll-through-stop-signs-and-ride">Why cyclists should be able to roll through stop signs and run red lights</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p><b>Correction</b>: this article first said CityLab was the first to point out the error in the study coverage.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814572/the-media-got-it-wrong-bikeshare-programs-dont-increase-head-injuriesJoseph Stromberg2014-06-05T14:10:11-04:002014-06-05T14:10:11-04:00Study: Bike lanes really do increase biking
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2a3DhTdkg1d_ZkJ9asVm0mannS8=/0x0:2039x1529/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/33956751/5862689820_f05de4eaaf_o.0.jpg" />
<figcaption><a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/pwkrueger/5862689820'>Paul Krueger</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Safety is usually the biggest reason why more people don't bike. True, biking <a style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">isn't all that dangerous</a><span> compared to being a pedestrian, but it <i>seems</i> much more dangerous — especially to people who haven't ridden in traffic or been on a bike much since childhood.</span></p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">research shows the lanes make new bikers feel safer about biking</q></p>
<p>Luckily, we have a cutting-edge technology that can solve this problem: protected bike lanes.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Some European cities began installing them back <span></span><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cycling_infrastructure" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">during the 1970s and 80s</a><span>, but relatively few of them existed in the US until recently. Over the past few years, though, some American cities have begun building them, and many bicycle advocates argue they're necessary to get people biking in numbers similar to those in Europe.</span></p>
<p>Now, new research shows they work in putting more bikers on the road. <span>A </span><a target="_blank" href="http://ppms.otrec.us/media/project_files/NITC-RR-583_ProtectedLanes_FinalReportb.pdf" style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;">recent study</a><span> of eight new protected bike lanes in Austin, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC </span><span>shows they encouraged substantial numbers of new bikers to take the road,</span><span> largely because they feel safer about doing so.</span></p>
<h3>Protected bike lanes get more people to choose biking</h3>
<p><img alt="2752480659_bc26a47546_o" class="photo" src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4570141/2752480659_bc26a47546_o.jpg"></p>
<p class="caption"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/2752480659" target="_blank">Colville-Andersen</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now, some of these cyclists might have been already riding their bikes — and had just been traveling on different streets. But when<span> 2,283 of the cyclists in these lanes were surveyed, 10 percent of them </span><span>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:</span></p>
<p><img src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4569627/Screen_Shot_2014-06-05_at_11.05.57_AM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-05_at_11.05.57_am"></p>
<p class="caption">National Institute for Transportation and Communities</p>
<p>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 target="_blank" href="http://bikeleague.org/womenbike">a disproportionately low number of bicyclists</a>, something bike advocates want to change.</p>
<h3>People are more comfortable with physically-separated bike lanes</h3>
<p><img alt="5862685992_f2d747580d_o" class="photo" src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4570149/5862685992_f2d747580d_o.jpg"></p>
<p class="caption"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pwkrueger/5862685992" target="_blank">Paul Krueger</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span>The second, third, and fourth rows in this graph show different types of physical separation, while the others show varieties of painted lanes:</span></p>
<p><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4569691/Screen_Shot_2014-06-05_at_11.19.30_AM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-05_at_11.19.30_am"></p>
<p class="caption">National Institute for Transportation and Communities</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <span>"I would be more likely to </span><span>ride a bicycle if motor </span><span>vehicles and bicycles were </span><span>physically separated by a </span><span>barrier."</span></p>
<h3>Local non-biking residents view these lanes positively</h3>
<p><img alt="5905969371_765ccf1d2a_o" class="photo" src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4570173/5905969371_765ccf1d2a_o.jpg"></p>
<p class="caption"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/goodcough/5905969371/in/photolist-9W4M9q-6rWMjo-5MZGEQ-ngk2Ag-9W4L9s-ejYdhN-934cjk-9W4LxU-9W4LkU-8R4qiT-chBYPs-5uU4EZ-9W1VVV-5MWwNy-afJ5VM-9ZTCW8-dviWCY-aJapLn-dnSZwi-dnT3wL-dnSVsa-dnTbTW-dnSUDt-dnT4Cu-dnSWrM-5Xdpk9-e1hnDu-7dMyn3-dUgUm5-dUbhxi-dUgRWf-aXuwgv-6md4Xy-6m8UWM-6md5y1-6m8VvT-6md67Y-6m8V4M-6md5Rs-6m8UNM-6m8WeF-6m8VBP-6m8VTr-6md5k1-6md5rm-9ZTFTa-6m8WjK-dwFYBY-duyBZh-9UkdYW" target="_blank">Dmitry Gudkov</a></p>
<p>The survey also asked local residents and drivers about how they felt regarding the new physically-protected lanes.</p>
<p>Bike lanes are most often controversial because they eliminate space for street parking. And <span>44 percent of the motorists did say the lanes negatively impacted their ability to find parking, with </span><span>50 percent of the residents saying their neighborhoods became worse places for driving. </span></p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">residents saw the lanes as improvements for their neighborhoods, even if they make it harder to park</q></p>
<p>But at the same time, 53 percent of drivers felt the lanes made cyclists more predictable and safer, by taking bikes off the street.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, the<span> residents saw the physically-separated bike lanes as improvements for their neighborhoods as a whole, even if they made it harder to park. </span><span> </span><span>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 </span><span>43 percent of the residents said </span><span>their neighborhoods became more desirable to live in (compared to 14 percent who said less desirable).</span></p>
<p><img src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4570013/Screen_Shot_2014-06-05_at_12.17.30_PM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-06-05_at_12.17.30_pm"></p>
<p><span>I</span><span>n total, </span><span>91 percent of residents supported physically separating bikes from cars, and 76 percent supported more bike lanes after experiencing one on their own street.</span></p>
<p><b>Further reading:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><span>The full report: "<a href="http://ppms.otrec.us/media/project_files/NITC-RR-583_ProtectedLanes_FinalReportb.pdf" target="_blank">Lessons from the Green Lanes</a>"</span></li>
<li><span>Bicycle Universe has <a href="http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/bikelanes.html" target="_blank">a great analysis</a> of the pros and cons of bike lanes</span></li>
<li> <span>A look at </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-us" target="_blank">how and why bicycle deaths happen in the US</a> </li>
<li>My (controversial) argument for <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/9/5691098/why-cyclists-should-be-able-to-roll-through-stop-signs-and-ride" target="_blank">why cyclists should be allowed to roll through stop signs</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p><b>Correction</b>: this post was previously unclear that all of the lanes in the new study were physically-separated ones.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/5/5782472/study-bike-lanes-really-do-increase-bikingJoseph Stromberg2014-05-22T11:20:08-04:002014-05-22T11:20:08-04:00How and why bicycle deaths happen in the US
<figure>
<img alt="Michael Stuparyk/Toronto Star via Getty Images" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hq4sb9CRb0Z7HnqjVKmKOsF4vVg=/4x0:2035x1523/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/33340795/165455912.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Michael Stuparyk/Toronto Star via Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a target="_blank" href="http://bikeleague.org/content/new-report-every-bicyclist-counts">new report</a> details the where, how, and why of the hundreds of bicycle deaths that occur across the United States.</p>
<p>While the government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS">collects annual data</a>, it's not very detailed — it details the number of cyclist fatalities over time, but not a whole lot else.</p>
<p>In response, the League of American Bicyclists has spent the past few years creating its own data set, manually collecting details about the circumstances of each death from newspaper and TV reports. Their data isn't as comprehensive as the governments' (for 2012, they catalogued 552 deaths, about 76 percent of the government's total of 726) —but it's much more detailed.</p>
<p>Here are a few of the trends they found among the 628 fatalities catalogued between<span> February 2011 and February 2013:</span></p>
<h3>Rear-end collisions cause a huge number of cyclist deaths</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4489253/Screen_Shot_2014-05-21_at_1.03.25_PM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-21_at_1.03.25_pm"></p>
<p>There wasn't a specific type of collision reported for every fatality in the database, but there was for most of them — and it's striking how many were caused by a rear-end collision.</p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">what makes this notable is rear endings are a small percentage of total collisions</q></p>
<p>For many accidents, it can be tricky to assign blame on <span>either</span><span> drivers or bikers. In most rear-end accidents, though, legal liability </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.andresberger.com/cycling-accidents-liability/">lies with the driver</a><span>.</span></p>
<p>What makes this especially notable is that rear-endings <a target="_blank" href="http://bicyclesafe.com/">don't constitute a very large percentage</a> of bicycle collisions. But as this data makes clear, they <span>can be the most dangerous ones, especially when cars are moving at high speeds and drivers don't see cyclists.</span></p>
<p><span>For cyclists, </span><a target="_blank" href="http://bicyclesafe.com/" style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;">bicyclesafe.com</a><span> has an excellent and detailed guide at avoiding getting rear ended (along with minimizing the chance of all sorts of collisions).</span></p>
<h3><span>Driver error contributes to way more deaths than cyclist error</span></h3>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://bicyclesafe.com/" style="line-height: 1.5;"></a></p>
<p><img src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4489317/Screen_Shot_2014-05-21_at_1.18.32_PM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-21_at_1.18.32_pm"></p>
<p>The database also catalogued any secondary factors that also played a role in the fatalities, as described in the newspaper articles. <span>Most of the deaths didn't involve these sorts of factors — but for those that did, driver errors weighed heavily.</span></p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">unsafe driving seems to lead to way more deaths than unsafe biking</q></p>
<p><span>It's certainly possible that a bicycling organization might show some bias in interpreting newspaper articles (their standard for careless driving was "drivers were reported to </span><span>be operating their vehicle in a careless or </span><span>inattentive manner"), but the discrepancy is still pretty striking. </span><span>Unsafe </span><span>driving seemed to lead to way more deaths than unsafe biking.</span></p>
<p>Relatedly, the dataset also included some information on the use of helmets — a contentious issue, since some (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">myself included</a>) argue that the potential safety <a target="_blank" href="http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html">benefits of helmets have been overstated</a>. For most fatalities, there was no reporting on whether the bicyclist had been wearing a helmet, but for those that did, here's the split:</p>
<p><img src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4489829/Screen_Shot_2014-05-21_at_2.36.36_PM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-21_at_2.36.36_pm"></p>
<p>With just this raw data, there's not really anything we can say about the effectiveness of helmets — we'd need to know the overall percentage of cyclists that use helmets, along with confounding factors (such as helmet-users taking safer routes, or things like that).</p>
<p>But one thing to note is that this rate<span> of helmet use among bicyclists who were killed is way higher than the government data indicates: for 2012, it was </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/pedestrians-and-bicyclists/fatalityfacts/bicycles/2012">just 17 percent</a><span>. The government data has </span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1174.html">previously been criticized</a><span> for deeply underreporting helmet use among fatalities.</span></p>
<h3>Most cyclist deaths occur on high-traffic urban roads</h3>
<p><img src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4490311/Screen_Shot_2014-05-21_at_3.20.45_PM.png" class="photo" alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-21_at_3.20.45_pm"></p>
<p>The dataset also looked at where fatalities occurred — whether in rural or urban settings (suburbs were generally put into the latter category), and whether on <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arterial_road" style="line-height: 1.5;">arterial</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collector_road" style="line-height: 1.5;">collector</a>, or local roads.</p>
<p><q aria-hidden="true" class="right">to prevent bike fatalities, we need to begin collecting much better data</q></p>
<p>The number of deaths in the urban-arterial category is pretty striking, although it should be cautioned that these are raw numbers, not rates of fatalities per cyclist. We can't calculate the rate,<span> because we don't know the total number of miles biked in rural areas versus urban ones.</span></p>
<p>So what's the <span>League of American Bicyclists' takeaway from all this data? </span></p>
<p><span>That in order to prevent bicycle fatalities, we</span><span> need to begin collecting much better systematic data on them</span><span>. </span><span>A few states collect the type of data on bicycling accidents and fatalities that is collected for auto accidents nationwide</span><span>, but they're a distinct minority.</span></p>
<p><b>Further reading:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><span>Using government data, Susannah Locke has analyzed <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5621388/pedestrian-and-biker-deaths">which US cities are deadliest</a> for both cyclists and pedestrians.</span></li>
<li><span>I've presented the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets">argument against mandatory helmet laws</a>.</span></li>
</ul>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738626/how-and-why-bicycle-deaths-happen-in-the-usJoseph Stromberg