A new study has found that bike riders are avoiding the shortest or easiest routes just so they don’t have to mix with heavy traffic.
The study, which was published in the journal Case Studies on Transport Policy, analysed over 3000 GPS-tracked bike trips to understand the route preferences of riders.
The study also used a measurement called the ‘average traffic stress’ (ATS) index, which takes into account the trip distance, traffic density, topography, and other characteristics of the road environment.
It should be no surprise that a painted bike line next to a busy road carries a higher ATS than, say, Brisbane’s Bicentennial Bikeway.
But there were some interesting nuances in the study results.
The researchers found that flat roads had a higher ATS than hilly roads. Of course, one would expect the opposite, a steep climb is surely more stressful than a flat plain.
However, flat roads generally contain denser traffic, and the researchers found that riders were, in fact, using the less preferable hills to avoid mixing with cars.
Research supervisor Dr Dorina Pojani told Fairfax Media: “We observed cyclists going out of their way to cycle uphill to avoid roads with heavy traffic”.
The research team also found that disconnected street networks and a lack of cycling infrastructure were also associated with higher ATS.
The study concludes that “fast-moving car traffic is a deterrent for cyclists, even where they have their own segregated lane… in Brisbane a ‘bicycle lane’ often involves just a white line painted on the asphalt, with no physical barriers to prevent cars from breaching it. This does little to ensure cyclists’ safety”.
Overall, the study suggests that Brisbane riders are making unfortunate compromises when their travel, taking detours just to stay safe.
It recommends that bike paths should pass through parks rather than along roads, or at the very least separated lanes should be ‘visually enclosed’ with trees, shrubs or other urban furniture.
You can read the abstract of the study in Case Studies on Transport Policy here.
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