Exposure to Risk, the Built Environment, and Bicycle Crashes in Minneapolis

Thursday, February 22, 2018

About the Seminar

Estimating exposure to risk and assessing crash risk is necessary to understand and prevent crashes and injuries. However, transportation planners and engineers historically have lacked information about bicycle demand or traffic volumes needed to identify vulnerable locations for bicyclists and evaluate the effectiveness of safety improvement programs.

This presentation described how researchers used peak hour counts of bicycle traffic at locations throughout Minneapolis and facility demand models estimated from those counts to characterize exposure to risk on the street network in the city. The researchers aggregated bicycle crashes from 2005 to 2010 to estimate crash rates, estimated the probability of crashes at intersections and on street segments, and assessed the effects of built environment variables on the probability of bicycle crashes. Study findings, including that the probability of crashes is higher along street segments with higher land-use mix and commercial use and at intersections with higher job accessibility, were shared. In addition, the implications for bicycling safety and facility improvements were discussed.

Webcast

About the Speaker

Greg Lindsey is a professor in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He specializes in environmental planning, policy, and management. His current research involves nonmotorized transportation systems, including bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and studies of relationships between the built environment and active transportation and physical activity.