Bike lanes, pedestrian crosswalks, and roundabouts merged into the fast lane in 2021 when the federal government passed a large infrastructure bill. The bill earmarked money for these types of projects which make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists as well as for drivers.
A lot of Americans welcomed this change, thinking public transportation projects focus too much on driving and not enough on other forms of transportation like walking, cycling, and public transit.
Others said projects like roundabouts and bike lanes were just a fad — a fad that will pass into history sooner or later, joining other relics like Blackberry phones, Segways, and waterbeds on the list of cultural curiosities.
As infrastructure professionals, we work on many types of road improvement projects. Naturally, when we work on a project, we like to know the value we’re adding to a community. Do roundabouts, bike lanes, and pedestrian crosswalks really make communities safer? What does the data show?
Transportation officials are really good at collecting data, but not just any data would answer our question. To see whether a project made an area safer, we need to measure collisions before and after workers completed the enhancement project. Fortunately, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) collect this type of data.
The IIHS reports that installing a roundabout at an intersection lowers the number of injury-producing collisions at that intersection by at least 72 percent. All types of collisions went down by at least 35 percent. In areas with speed limits of 40 mph or higher, both types of collisions decreased even more dramatically.
What about bike lanes and pedestrian crosswalks? The data is clear here, too. The FHA reports that well-marked pedestrian crosswalks lower injury-producing accidents by up to 48 percent. Bike lanes have a similar impact on safety in urban areas. Even in rural areas, bike lanes reduce collisions by about 30 percent.
For infrastructure professionals, like the InfraStripe family of traffic solutions companies, these projects aren’t cultural, political, or financial issues. They’re safety issues, and nothing matters more than safety.
So what value do these projects add to their communities? Ultimately, it’s a value that isn’t measured in data. Instead, it’s measured in accidents that didn’t happen, in people who made it home from work uninjured, in pedestrians and cyclists who weren’t struck by vehicles.
No matter the mode of transportation, we’re proud to take part in any project that achieves such an important goal.