Heterogeneous impacts of protected bike lanes on bikeshare behavior across demographic groups in New York - npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport
www.nature.com
Decisions regarding the installation of bicycle infrastructure require evidence of whether and to what extent different bicycle-lane types increase ridership. However, associations between bicycle infrastructure and ridership have primarily been studied in the context of individual lanes and corridors, or when analyzed at the scale of entire cities, generalized across different bike-lane types. Drawing upon 72 million bikeshare trips from Citi Bike in New York, we demonstrate that there is an approximately 18% increase in bikeshare trips at adjacent stations in the 12 months following the installation of protected bike lanes and a 14% increase associated with painted bike lanes and ‘sharrows.’ However, using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences analysis to compare bike stations with similar surrounding social and built-environment characteristics, we find a causal effect on bikeshare ridership only after the installation of protected bike lanes, with an average monthly increase of 379 rides per station (p < 0.001).
  • Taalnazi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    4 days ago

    What @[email protected] said, goes. But as for the amount of lanes, I do think I overlooked that one, so I edited my comment just now. I do think it’s worth in general to reduce the amount of car lanes (given that induced demand’s a thing).

    Still, for protected bike lanes that are fully separate from car lanes, by a strong barrier (not just an elevation), I think you could do with 4, maybe 6 lanes. More would be unnecessary or dangerous for all, though.

    We also have ‘bicycle main pathes’ where car drivers are ‘guests’. That is, cars must drive behind bicyclists and not overtake them. They generally are in 30 km/hr zones, and the width of 2-3 car lanes (so about 7-10 m). Sidewalks are also present there, of course.

    Typically, those are in residential-heavy areas where a lot of people bicycle (often near the city centre where most stores are). They provide that cars can drive around the centre, while bicyclists can easily go in and out of the centre.