Out on the streets, we can all tell the number of bicyclists is growing. But, to gain the recognition we deserve, that rise needs to be backed by hard data.

That’s why Alta Planning + Design developed the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project. According to Alta: “Without accurate and consistent demand and usage figures, it is difficult to measure the positive benefits of investments in these modes, especially when compared to the other transportation modes such as the private automobile… This nationwide effort provides consistent model of data collection and ongoing data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals.”

By creating the resources and tools to conduct counts, the Project is making it easier for advocates and professionals to gather data to make the case for current and future bike paths, lanes and other facilities for bicycles and pedestrians. By collecting that data from communities nationwide, the Project also hopes to illuminate differences in overall trends in biking and walking based on regions’ demography, geography, and land use. The end result: A rich resource for planners and researchers alike that showcases the community benefits and rising popularity of biking and walking.

But the Project needs you! The official dates for the next nationwide count are coming up, September 11-13.

Alta has created everything you need – from instructions to surveys to volunteer training presentations – to contribute to this exciting national initiative. Learn more and get involved at www.bikepeddocumentation.org.

But what else can we learn about bicycling in our nation’s capital — and what makes people ride?

That’s the question that Virginia Tech Assistant Professor Ralph Buehler and several of his students set out to answer with their recent study: “Trends and Determinants of Cycling in the Washington, DC Region.” (The first part of the study has been published in the journal World Transport Policy and Practice.)

“The Washington region is a bike-commuter region,” Buehler told me. As he wrote in his study: “In 2008, 41 percent of all weekday bike trips in the region were commute- or work-related, compared to only 17 percent in other urbanized areas in the U.S. The high share of utilitarian trip purposes in the region is comparable with bike-friendly cities in Europe, such as Berlin or Amsterdam.”

D.C. has a history of planning for bicycling and has made significant progress, but Buehler warned against complacency. “Having big plans now does not mean that it will be implemented in the future,” he said. “It was interesting to see the ambitious plans from the 1970s that only got partially implemented. This could be a little bit of a warning for cycling advocates.”

“The development of the regional trail network was crucial to provide connection between jurisdictions and from neighborhoods to employment centers,” Buehler continued. “The new trend towards bike lanes is encouraging because it will complement the regional network.”

Buehler and his co-authors identified significant “spatial variability” in bicycling rates – some parts of the regions saw higher rider ship than other parts. So, what role did self-selection or ‘demographic determination’ have in explaining this variability?

“There is definitely some self-selection,” Buehler told me. “But the jurisdictions also built great facilities in neighborhoods in which people want to cycle. Most studies show that even after controlling for self-selection, transport infrastructure and the built environment still influence travel choices. If you offer safe and attractive cycling conditions, people will cycle – even those who have not considered cycling a mode of transport.”

At the same time, self-selection cannot be easily disentangled from travel demand. People who want to bike may demand bicycle infrastructure. The city then builds more bike infrastructure and even more people ride. Some may even move to the neighborhood because they want to use their bicycles — it’s difficult to disentangle the two.

So, what lessons can D.C. learn from this study? “I think D.C. and the other jurisdictions have to integrate their own bicycle network and to connect them across jurisdictional boundaries,” Buehler said. “DC, Arlington, and Alexandria have made great progress, but there are still many gaps.” According to Buehler, we’ll see more cyclists in all regions when conditions improve. The study also identified the important role the building shower, lockers, and bike parking play in encouraging bicycling. Plentiful car parking, on the other hand, is negatively associated with bicycling, meaning that the more parking is available, the fewer cyclists you can expect.

For more from Professor Buehler and his colleague Professor John Pucher of Rutgers, see their “Cycling to Work in 90 Large Cities” report and their new book, City Cycling. The book can be pre-ordered at a discount on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Here’s a short brochure.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

In 2011, total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States declined 1.2%. That means, due to the economy and other factors, Americans drove slightly less in 2011 than they did in 2010. But what makes that remarkable is the striking result: Congestion decreased 30%.

Bicyclists are everywhere, but we tend to flock to large dense cities – many of the places faced with the most congested roads and most likely to benefit from commuters leaving their cars at home in favor of their bikes.

Don’t worry if you’re not a bike commuter. It’s not just work trips that contribute to congestion. About half of all peak-hour trips are not work-related. If you’re riding instead of driving during morning and afternoon rush, you’re helping to ease congestion.

Among other things, this is useful information for making the case to use Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement funds for bicycling and walking projects.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

On Monday, we provided an early look at our very preliminary data. We are just beginning to track fatal crashes, but we are already re-examining some of our assumptions, based on the first 150 records.

We haven’t yet reported on all of the data we are collecting. Today, we want to share a little bit more about the information we’re collecting to give you  a sense of what is to come.

Currently, we are collecting information in the following categories:

• Date of incident
• Age of cyclist
• Gender of cyclist
• Obituary
• Location (street, city, state, closest intersection)
• Driver age
• Crash time
• Photo
• Land Use
• Road Type
• Where on Road the Collision Occurred
• Collision Type
• Vehicle Type
• Driver at Crash Time
• Cyclist at Crash Time
• Wearing helmet
• Sources
• Legal Status

The purpose of these particular questions is to build upon the data captured by the federal Fatalities Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and add richness and detail that can’t be found there. This allows us to check our data against the official federal database, while gaining a more complete picture of why these deaths occurred. What type of collision was it? What were the contributing factors? What were the features of the road? Was the driver distracted? If so, by what?

Members of the public are invited to email Elizabeth Kiker at Elizabeth[at]bikeleague.org to notify us of cyclist fatalities as they occur or to add details about existing profiles. We want the most complete and up-to-date information possible.

We initially entered the deaths that we knew about in 2011. Please note that, going forward, we will only be able to track events that take place in 2012 and later. While we want to honor every cyclist, we are constrained in our ability to record past events. If we have missed any cyclists who were killed since January 1, 2012, please do let us know.

This practical constraint also explains why we are limiting the project to fatalities. We know that examining all crashes would be very instructive. Unfortunately, capturing those data would be a mammoth task, fraught with logistical complexity.

Thanks to the member contributions we’ve received so far, we’ve already added a new feature to Every Bicyclist Counts – a map. This custom, Google-powered map shows where the fatal crashes are occurring. Click here to see the map.

Thank you for your support for this project.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

First, it serves as a memorial for fallen cyclists. Every bicyclist matters and we want to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives bicycling, while also providing a place for grieving friends and family to pay tribute in the comments, if they wish.

Second, we recognize that we all have a lot to learn about the circumstances of fatal crashes. To improve safety on our roads, we need to better understand what leads to fatal crashes and other bicyclist deaths (they’re not all crashes).

Third, we want to try to improve the response to, coverage of, and follow-up to every one of these fatal crashes. We believe that if we can hold a spotlight to the police, justice system, and media response to these incidents, we may be able to improve the quality of such responses over time.

This month, we sent out an appeal to League members describing Every Bicyclist Counts and asking for support for this important memorial, data-gathering, and awareness-raising tool. We immediately heard from members who were appreciative of the project – and eager to find out more about what we’ve learned so far.

In recognition of the interest in new data on bicycling fatalities, we decided to share some of what we know up to this point. However, please treat these data as highly preliminary. Imagine a big “Draft – Data not final” watermark on the page behind all that follows.

Why Every Bicyclist Counts

Every death of a cyclist is a personal tragedy for the family and for the entire community of bicyclists. We want to honor that with this project. We also see a gaping hole in the data currently collected about bicyclist fatalities. Only the most basic information on fatal crashes (time of day, intersection/non-intersection, gender, age, etc.) is gathered by the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and there is a long wait before the data is publicly available. We gather that information here too, using the same categories when possible for consistency. But by delving more deeply and gathering specific details on bicyclist fatalities, we are able to add more richness to the data. We also report on fatalities that take place off of roads and those that do not involve motor vehicles.

Methodology

We gather information on fatalities as we learn about them through web-alerts and notifications from the public (primarily cyclists and family members; email Elizabeth[at]bikeleague.org). It appears that we are collecting a majority of – but not all – fatalities. We hope that as word of the project spreads, we will capture more and more of the 600+ annual fatalities and fill in more details about the circumstances. We rely first on public documents – newspaper reports and obituaries, blogs, police reports – and supplement that with first hand reports. We plan to compile and analyze the data annually.

To date, we have recorded 148 fatalities. We gathered information on four early crashes to work out the kinks before starting in earnest in February 2011. The remaining 144 fatalities reported below took place between February 2011 and May 16, 2012. We do not catch every fatality (we will back-fill as we find out about more), but our data appears consistent with FARS records from past years. Our high crash times of day line up with the times reported in FARS. The proportion of male and female fatalities is also consistent (FARS 2010 reports 87% male, our data set reports 88% male).

Limitations: Despite the enormous value and new analysis we believe this project will bring to the bicycling community, we recognize that there are (at least) several limitations.

• No coverage of injuries and near-misses. As it is, we have taken on the significant task of trying to track down what amounts to nearly two crashes per day. It would be nearly impossible to do the same for the tens of thousands of non-fatal crashes.
• No exposure data. Without knowing how many people are riding under difference conditions, it’s impossible to know the relative risk of different circumstances. This problem haunts other bicycle risk analysis as well.
• Not scientific. It is not a census of all fatal crashes (though we are trying to make it as comprehensive as possible), nor is it a random sample. We report only the ones we find out about. In addition, it requires a person enter the information and make determinations about which categories best apply. (Links to all sources are available on EveryBicyclistCounts.org.)
• Dependence on public sources. Every Bicyclist Counts still depends, to some extent, on police reporting and media accounts. These are often flawed, incomplete, or biased. We believe that additional information from cyclists and families can help improve our data. The project may, in the long run, help improve the quality of future reporting.

Nonetheless, we felt we had to start somewhere. We hope that through this project we will add to our understanding of the causes and circumstances fatal crashes and, ideally, improve institutional reporting practices.

Preliminary findings

Please consider these findings as the first step to learning more about fatal crashes. We have much more to learn through this project. The proportions will be slightly different in our Every Bicyclist Counts annual reports, since they will be derived from different data sets. As described above, this preliminary dataset is cumulative, starting primarily late-2011.

Collision type

We were able to determine the nature of the crash (eg. right hook, rear end) in 125 of the 148 fatalities.  We were surprised to learn that more than a third (35%) of cyclists killed were hit from behind. This is a considerably higher share than we had previously thought. Additionally, one cyclist was killed after rear-ending an automobile.

The next largest category is the generic “failure to yield” – 18% by drivers, 10% by bicyclists. This category was borrowed from FARS. Going forward, we are going to further break down this category to understand the nature of the failure to yield. This is an area of rich potential to add to our understanding of fatal crashes.

There were an equal number of fatal head-on collisions as right hooks, 11 fatalities/9 percent in each case. This will be one to watch as our dataset expands. Sideswipes and T-hits accounted for 6 percent each.

There were other deaths that would not be captured in the federal FARS database of traffic fatalities. For example, one cyclist died of dehydration on a trail, another died after striking a bollard on a trail. Sad occurrences like these reinforce the need for proper preparation and caution on all rides.

Collision location

The FARS database tells us only if bicycling fatalities occur at an intersection (~40% in 2010) or not at an intersection (~60% in 2010). We wanted to know more.

Half of the recorded fatalities occurred on the road at a non-intersection location. An additional 16 percent occurred on a roadway shoulder. Nearly 20 percent took place at an intersection; one more was recorded as occurring at a driveway; two happened in crosswalks. (Not included here are two people who were killed walking their bikes.)

Twelve of the fatalities in the dataset occurred in bike lanes (or intersections where the cyclist had been in a bike lane). Fatal crashes also occurred on trails and sidewalks, and took place at a railroad crossing.

Other trends

Among the 81 fatal crashes where an additional factor was reported for the driver, 37 (46%) were operating in a careless or inattentive manner, 20 (25%) committed hit-and-runs, 11 (14%) involved alcohol and/or drugs. Other factors were “sun in eyes” (4), distracted (3), drowsy (2), and red-light running (1).

Among the 29 fatalities with cyclist-related factors, 8 (35%) involved wrong-way riding, with one more reported as wrong-way sidewalk riding, and one more same-direction sidewalk riding. The remaining factors were one-offs in the current data set, including an instance of alcohol/drugs, a fall, a lack of lights or reflective gear, weaving in the road, holding the back of a pick-up truck, striking a bollard, and a fatal dehydration.

Several factors correspond with the highest rates of cycling:

• The highest concentration of fatal crashes (43%) occurred between 3:00pm and 9:00pm
• The majority (88%) of those killed were male
• Large proportions occurred in California (24%) and Florida (18%) – note that winter months are over represented in this data set which began in earnest in February 2011
• The average age was 42; the median age was 45

The vast majority of the sources (104 of 148) did not report on the presence of a helmet.

As our data set expands, we some of these data will likely smooth out.

Take-aways

Discussions of data can seem cold. This project is driven by a desire to understand and prevent future bicyclist fatalities through education and street design. Behind every number there is a life. Just as every bicyclist counts, every death needs to be counted. If this resonates with you, we invite you to support this project with a donation.

Keep riding and be safe out there.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

One of the most common laments of the bicycling policy community is the lack of consistent, reliable data on bicycle travel. As of last week, when the House voted to eliminate the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), the only comprehensive, national survey that captures bike commuting data at the local level is in danger of being cut.

It’s not just bike commuting data that would be lost if Congress eliminates the ACS. It’s a whole range of economic, household, and community information. ACS data are used by all sorts of decision-makers. Federal, state, and local governments make critical decisions about how to distribute resources based on ACS data. Academics and researchers at think tanks use ACS data to track trends.

Private businesses, large and small, use the ACS to assess population profiles and spending power of neighborhoods, influencing investment decisions. Target, for example, decides what size packages to carry in their stores based on population density statistics from the ACS: the denser the neighborhood, the smaller the containers for smaller apartments and folks carting their purchases on transit. It is for its economic importance that organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, which often oppose government spending, strongly support preserving the ACS and have come out against the House vote.

Here’s the Census Bureau Director on the necessity of the ACS:

Of course, the ACS is a critical source of transportation data. ACS commuting data are used by planners and engineers to mitigate traffic congestion by gauging peak travel demand. The ACS allows public and private investors to measure the success (or failure) of their transportation infrastructure investments. Transit planners use it to determine unmet transportation needs. And – most important of all! – the ACS tracks bicycle commuters (among the other modes).

We’ve talked before about the limitations of the survey question, but the ACS is undeniably one of the most important national data sources for bicycling. (The intermittent National Household Travel Survey, NHTS, is another important one.) The ACS is annual, giving us the ability to track change over time. The ACS is the source of our commuter statistics and a cornerstone of the Alliance for Biking & Walking’s biennial Benchmarking Report.

Without the ACS, it would become harder to show the results of your community’s bicycling investments, especially in comparison to other cities, since the standardized methodology makes comparisons more reliable. And we wouldn’t be able to tell you that bicycle commuting increased 40 percent nationally since 2000 and 77 percent in Bicycle Friendly Communities.

Now that the House has voted to 1) make the survey optional, and 2) to do away with it all together, it is up to the Senate to block both measures. The National Low Income Housing Coalition is hosting a sign-on letter to tell the Senate the importance of the ACS. If you’re part of an organization that would like to sign the letter, email your organization’s name, along with the city and state in parentheses (city, state abbreviation) to Brendan Nichols bnichols@ccmc.org at The Census Project. The letter is available here.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

Credit: America Bikes

Carolyn Szczepanski
Communications Director

Carolyn joined the League in March 2012, after two years at the Alliance for Biking & Walking. In addition to managing the League's blog, magazine and other communications, Carolyn organized the first National Women's Bicycling Summit and launched the League's newest program: Women Bike. Before she crossed over to advocacy, she was a professional journalist for nearly 10 years.

Bicycling and walking make up 12 percent of all trips and 14 percent of all traffic fatalities and yet receive only 1.6 percent of federal transportation funding. What more do you need to make the case for investments in bicycling and walking? Well, if you think of something it is probably covered in Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2012 Benchmarking Report released today by the Alliance for Biking and Walking.

Here are some of the highlights

• In 2009, 40% of trips in the United States were shorter than 2 miles, yet 87% of these trips are by car. Twenty-seven percent of trips were shorter than 1 mile. Still, Americans use their cars for 62% of these trips.

• While bicycling and walking fell 66% between 1960 and 2009, obesity levels increased 156%.

• Seniors are the most vulnerable bicyclists and pedestrians. Adults over 65 make up 10% of walking trips, yet comprise 19% of pedestrian fatalities. This age group accounts for 6% of bicycling trips, yet 10% of bicyclist fatalities.

• Bicycling and walking projects create 11-14 jobs per $1 million spent, compared to just 7 jobs created per $1 million spent on highway projects. Cost benefit analysis show that up to $11.80 in benefits can be gained for every $1 invested in bicycling and walking.

• On average, the largest 51 U.S. cities show a 29% increase in bicycle facilities since the 2010 report. Cities report that 20,908 miles of bicycle facilities and 7,079 miles of pedestrian facilities are planned for the coming years (much of this contingent upon funding).

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

1. Transportation Enhancements, a key funding source, has survived repeated direct attacks in the Senate, thanks to bicyclists speaking up.

2. The outline of the House transportation re-authorization bill would entirely eliminate Transportation Enhancements, along with the Safe Routes to School and Recreational Trails programs. Even the vague language about eligibility seems to imply that states would have to jump through additional hoops to use federal funds on bicycling and walking projects.

3. We had to fight hard in the Senate to maintain even diminished dedicated funding. Not to mention the mandatory sidepath law inserted into the bill that threatened bicyclists’ right to roads on public lands.

But what would it look like if we didn’t have Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to Schools (and the non-motorized transportation pilot program) and the Recreational Trails program?

Here’s the amount of federal money states have spent on bicycling and walking projects each year since 1992:

Click to enlarge.

We’ve seen tremendous growth over the past twenty or so years, with a notable spike during the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus. Active transportation projects are popular and local and regional agencies are increasingly calling for these types of projects, but they need support from federal funds.

Here is where the funds came from, by funding program:

What if we didn’t have Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School & the Pilot Program, and Recreational Trails?

Just imagine all for trails, bridges, and road facilities that would not exist without the blacked out funds.

Now, here’s the picture for FY2011, using newly released numbers from the Federal Highway Administration:

And without dedicated funds?

Pretty bleak. As these charts illustrate, it is going to be a critical year for the National Bike Summit to maintain dedicated funding for bicycling and walking projects and fight for bicyclists’ rights. Register now.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.

There are two bike-related submissions. The first is an expanded version of one that will look familiar to regular BikeLeagueBlog readers, and I mean a really expanded version.

Kory Northrop created these graphics to show the relationship between bicycle commuting, safety, and government spending. His aim, he writes, was to present bicycling-related data ‘in a manner that is more easily digestible [which] is important to informing policymakers and the public about these issues.”

Kory presents, graphically, data from our tables of American Community Survey bicycle commuting data to show bicycle commuter rates by state, with boxes that illustrate the gender mode split (the larger the yellow box, the more female cyclists). The graph is interactive: you can scroll through the years from 2005 to 2010.

Using the list of US cities with populations over 60,000, Kory graphed commuter data, sort-able by the number of bike commuters, the percentage of bicycle commuters, and the number of female and male bicyclists.

Next, Kory presents the number of bicyclist fatalities in the 50 states for each year since 2000. For the years 2005 through 2010 he calculated a fatality rate using the number of bicycle commuters as the denominator.

Then Kory shows the amount of FHWA Federal-Aid transportation funds states spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects since 1992. The size of the circle represents per capita spending. This is a topic close to our hearts. For more information on accessing federal funds for bicycling and walking projects, please visit our Advocacy Advance website.

Finally, there is an overview that shows commuter levels and fatalities over the years.

Vote now. We’d love to see Kory’s graphic win the challenge.

But if you’re not sold, you have another bicycling graphic option to choose. This one shows roadway bicycle “accidents” on several roads in Chicago. (Ed. note, we know the preferred term is crash.)

So there you have it. The poll is open now.

Darren Flusche
League Policy Director

Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.