Phoenix, AZ (July 17, 2019)- Across the nation, a new study has found Phoenix ranked in the top 10 of a list of most dangerous cities for cyclists in the United States. According to the study, Phoenix ranked 8th in the nation as the most dangerous places for 2 wheeled transportation. Researchers focused on 3 different factors to determine which cities ranked where (population, number of traffic fatalities, and the percentage of those fatalities that were cyclists). Nickolas Lyneis, a Phoenix resident says that he would like to see some changes in Phoenix when it comes to cyclists.
"I have been hit three times out of the 10 years I've been here," Lyneis said. Lyneis says he believes that drivers are forgetting the fundamentals when it comes to safety. From 2017 there were 250 traffic related fatalities in the Phoenix Metro area, of those fatalities, 6% involved cyclists. "Honestly, it doesn't surprise me," Lyneis said.
The Street Transportation Department said there are things they are working on right now to try and back pedal off of this list. "One of the big initiatives right under Transportation 2050 is the Accelerated Pavement Maintenance Program that was approved by city council," Ashley Patton described. "And with that program we are paving three times the streets that we normally would. So, with that a freshly paved street is a blank slate. So, that's a great opportunity for us to add bike lanes." The city said they plan on adding an additional 1,080 bike lanes by 2050 which equals about 30-35 miles of bike lanes per year!
The city has also been looking at how other cities across the nation have utilized and how it is working for those cities. Patton said they have found that buffered bike lanes and adding green paint has and can continue to make a difference. "It catches the driver’s eyes and they can see that we're sharing the road with bicyclists," Patton said. "It gives us as cyclists a lot more variety of where we could ride and it opens up more opportunities of people actually noticing other cyclists out there and saying, 'Okay hey... there's a lot more bicyclists out on there. We need to pay attention to what we're doing driving,'" Lyneis said.
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