U.S. cities providing new lanes as cycling commutes increase: Green lanes in six cities target safety
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* Kim Krisberg

Two years ago, transportation officials in Washington, D.C., decided to install a new bike lane along 15th Street, NW, a main thoroughfare through downtown. But this bike lane was more than just a white stripe and an image of a cyclist painted on the road.

Instead, officials opted to install a protected bike lane, sometimes known as a cycle track or green lane. The 8-foot-wide, two-way bike lane was built between the sidewalk and parked cars, with flexible white posts used to further designate the lane from motor vehicle traffic. It was a huge success, according to officials.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/43/7/1.3/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/43/7/1.3/F1)

In San Francisco, cyclists use protected green lanes. The use of designated lanes is growing as the number of people who ride bicycles for transportation and exercise grows in the U.S.

Photo courtesy San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

“Not only did we see more bikers, we saw older and younger bikers, more women bikers — just a broader cross-section of the D.C. population using this lane,” said Jim Sebastian, transportation planner at the District Department of Transportation.

In fact, the number of bicyclists on 15th Street tripled, Sebastian said, and the agency began receiving more requests to build protected bike lanes. By the end of this year, the nation’s capital will be home to four protected bike lanes, with the ultimate goal of building a “safe, low-stress network throughout the city,” Sebastian said. He noted that while Washington, D.C., offers about 55 miles of street bike lanes, building protected lanes can encourage residents who do not feel safe riding side-by-side with traffic to give biking a chance.

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[Figure2](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/43/7/1.3/F2)

A cyclist travels via specially marked lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Photo courtesy Stephanie Crawford, APHA

“The key is combining the ability to bike with transit, with car-sharing, with other new, innovative transportation options and then people can start to let go of their personal vehicles,” Sebastian told *The Nation’s Health.*

Washington, D.C., is just one of many U.S. communities where interest in biking is on the rise. For example, in Knoxville, Tenn., commuter bike traffic increased by 125 percent between 2007 and 2010; in Minneapolis, the number of city bicyclists increased by 174 percent between 2003 and 2008; and in San Jose, Calif., biking to work went up by 200 percent from 2006 and 2008. The numbers are good news for transportation planners trying to mitigate congestion as well as to support public health goals related to physical activity, obesity and chronic disease. But without safer biking infrastructure, advocates say there are only so many people who will choose to bike.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 680 bicyclists were killed and 48,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2011. The fatality rate was 9 percent higher than it was in 2010.

“For 30 years or so, the state-of-the-art biking facility for a busy road was a stripe on the road…that system got us 1 percent of the population biking,” said Martha Roskowski, director of the Green Lane Project. “When you combine that with the primary reason people don’t bike — safety — you have to say our system is not good enough. And you can’t market your way into making people feel safe. Our concept is that protected bike lanes can be the tip of the arrow of change.”

The Green Lane Project is a campaign to jumpstart the development of protected bike lanes on American streets with the help of six initial partnership cities: Chicago; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; and Memphis, Tenn. With support from the campaign, the six cities share lessons learned, swap best practices and provide an emerging knowledge base of the benefits of protected bike lanes.

Roskowski described protected bike lanes as the next frontier in biking infrastructure. During 2012 alone, the number of protected bike lanes grew from 62 to 102 nationwide, with 80 percent of new lanes built in the partnership cities as well as New York City, which began building protected lanes in 2008. Another 100 protected bike lanes are expected by the end of 2013, Roskowski said.

“If cities are serious about making biking work better, they’re now building protected lanes,” she told *The Nation’s Health.*

To quantify the benefits of protected bike lanes, the Green Lane Project has partnered with researchers at Oregon’s Portland State University to study outcomes in each of the six partnership cities. While that data is not expected until next year, previous research shows that people feel safer with more space between bicyclists and drivers.

Jennifer Dill, PhD, MA, a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University and director of the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, cited a survey of Portland adults that found the largest number of respondents described themselves as “interested but concerned” about biking; however, protected bike lanes could lure them out. In another study she co-authored that was published last year in *Transportation Research Record,* surveys of both bikers and motorists in Portland liked the increased separation between bikes and cars.

“When you look at cities worldwide that have really high rates of bicycling, they also have big networks of these protected bike lanes on major boulevards,” said Dill, who is also involved in the Green Lane Project research.

To get more Americans biking, infrastructure efforts will have to market themselves to more risk-averse people, said Ralph Buehler, PhD, a professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech and chair of the Transportation Research Board’s Bicycle Transportation Committee. Buehler also singled out Europe, where separated biking infrastructure has attracted a broader demographic of bikers compared to the U.S., where the majority of biking trips are made by men.

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[Figure3](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/43/7/1.3/F3)

A cyclist navigates traffic via a green lane in Washington, D.C. The city is one of six initial sites that have installed the protected lanes, which are part of the Green Lane Project.

Photo courtesy Stephanie Crawford, APHA

Buehler also noted that health can be a key driver in biking decisions.

“Biking is good for you, it doesn’t depend on the actions of others,” he told *The Nation’s Health.* “I think the public health argument is very important because it can appeal to a societal goal, but it’s also a very selfish, individual goal.”

Of course, expanding and creating safer biking infrastructure is not necessarily a smooth ride. In addition to debates over how public streets are used, funding also plays a role. During the 2012 reauthorization of the federal transportation bill known as the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP-21, lawmakers cut biking and walking funds by about 30 percent. Still, there is a “recent boom” in innovative bike lanes and programs, said Jeffrey Miller, president and CEO of the Alliance for Biking and Walking.

For example, Miller described bike share efforts, which provide free or affordable access to bikes on a short-term basis, as a “gateway” to bicycling. He noted that within seven weeks of the launch of New York City’s bike share program, users had taken 1 million trips.

“There’s a group of bikers willing to mix it up with traffic, but the majority of Americans are much more worried about safety,” Miller said. “So to see this new infrastructure (such as protected bike lines) going up around the country makes a world of difference.”

In San Francisco, bike use is up 71 percent since 2006 and officials have added about 22 miles to the city’s biking network since August 2010, said Ben Jose, public relations officer at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Jose said the city’s goal is to create an environment in which residents of all ages feel comfortable biking. And offering protected bike lanes is central to that goal.

“It’s about increasing safety and increasing the perception of comfort, but also about providing more dignity for people who bike,” Jose said. “That perception of safety and comfort is crucial to getting more people of different ages, backgrounds and experiences to actually get on a bike.”

To learn more about cycling and protected bike lanes, visit [www.bikesbelong.org](http://www.bikesbelong.org) and [www.greenlaneproject.org](http://www.greenlaneproject.org).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association