New York City releases bicycle fatality study

In New York City, StreetsBlog offers an interesting few posts on a new bicycle safety study released last week by New York City. Here’s the full report (PDF file), weighing in at 39 pages, with lots of interesting implications for bicycle advocates in cities around the country.

The city immediately followed up the release of the report with promises of improved bicycle facilities (press release PDF file), including 200 miles of additional bike lanes and routes over the next three years. That’s a huge increase over the 13.6 miles added in 2004, or even over the 46.8 miles added in 2000, the most in the last 10 years.

Charles Komanoff and Michael Smith take issue with the fault numbers in the study over at RightOfWay.org (longer version from StreetsBlog), having examined the raw accident data for 1996-1998, and found that the proportion of fault for drivers and riders was approximately the reverse of that reported in the new study.

Here’s a look at the three clusters of cyclist deaths in NYC, and here’s an interview with NYC DOT’s Director for Street Management and Safety Ryan Russo.

Also last week, Transportation Alternatives programs director Noah Budnick and NYC DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall discussed the study on the Brian Lehrer Show on New York Public Radio (audio stream | MP3).

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