Explore Contributing Geometric Factors and Built-Environment on Bicycle Activity and Safety at Intersections

This study attempts to explore all factors associated with bicycle motor-vehicle crashes at intersections in order to improve bicycle safety and bicycle activity. Factors such as exposure (bicycle and vehicle volumes), existing facilities (bike lanes, sidewalks, shared-use paths), geometric design (# of lanes, speed limit, medians, legs, roadway conditions), and land-use were collected and evaluated using Poisson, Zero-Inflated Poisson, and Negative Binomial models in SAS 9.4 software. Increasing the bicycle travel mode can have positive lasting effects on personal health, the environment, and improve traffic conditions. Deterrents that keep users from riding bicycles more are the lack of facilities and most importantly, safety concerns. Florida has consistently been a national leader in bicyclist deaths, which made this area a great candidate to study. Vehicle and bicycle volumes for 159 intersections in Orlando, Florida were collected and compared with crash data that was obtained. All existing facilities, geometric design properties, and land-uses for each intersection were collected for analysis. The results confirmed that an increase of motor-vehicles and bicyclists would increase the risk of a crash at an intersection. The presence of a keyhole lane (bike lane in-between a through and exclusive right turn lane), was shown to be statistically significant, and although it still had a positive correlation with injury risk, it had a much lower risk of crashes than a typical bike lane at intersections. The presence of a far shared path (more than 4 feet from the edge of curb) was shown to be statistically significant in decreasing the risk of crashes between bicycles and motor-vehicles at intersections. Institutional, agricultural, residential, government, and school land uses had positive correlations and were statistically significant with increasing activity of bicyclists at intersections. This study is unique because it uses actual bicycle volume as an exposure to determine the effects of bicycle safety and activity at intersections and not many others have done this. It is important for transportation planners and designers to use this information to design better complete streets in the future