Dedicated bike lanes make you safer

Really!

New research has shown that dedicated bike lanes can cut bicycling injuries in half. And this may sound like common sense but transportation engineers have long thought that it was better for bicyclists to ride alongside cars.

According to an article in The Atlantic Cities, “your chance of injury drops by about 50 percent, relative to that major city street, when riding on a similar road with a bike lane and no parked cars. The same improvement occurs on bike paths and local streets with designated bike routes. And protected bike lanes – with actual barriers separating cyclists from traffic – really make a difference. The risk of injury drops for riders there by 90 percent.”

Things to keep in mind as the city makes plans to redo the Clinton Avenue corridor and the gateway to the city.

Jan