David Engwicht has been called the father of traffic calming. This is the guy who set up his living room in the middle of the street. He has a ton of great ideas about making streets safer.
It may be surprising to you that he is not the biggest fan bikelanes, arguing that they don't make roads safer, but rather, more dangerous:
It makes sense right up until the very last sentence. Although bikelanes may in fact be initially more dangerous for the false sense of security they give both drivers and cyclists, the fact that bikelanes increase cyclist numbers makes them safer. More cyclists on bikelaned streets means more cyclists on non-bikelaned streets. This forces drivers to be careful and more mindful of cyclists.
At first glance it seems self-evident that bike lanes automatically make streets safer for cyclists. It is common knowledge that the wider the traffic lane, the faster a motorist will tend to go…The narrower a passage way the slower we tend to go because there is not the same margin for error…
But there is a contradictory psychological impact of bike lanes. They deliver greater certainty to the driver. The driver knows exactly which is the cyclists’ space and which is their space. This increased certainty about where the cyclist will be in the roadway encourages the motorist to speed up…
But there is another interesting set of contradictory factors when it comes to bike lanes. Bike lanes change the perceptions of the cyclist. Cyclists feel safer because they no longer have to share a space with motorists. But…this is to some extent a false sense of security…when bike lanes are present, motorists impose greater risks on the cyclists, for example, driving closer to the cyclist when passing. Does this mean that accident rates go up after the bike lane goes in? Not necessarily. Because the cyclists feel safer, more of them cycle on that street.
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