Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Architecture / Jason Brody / This report examines the use of bicycling as a transportation alternative to the personal automobile in the United States. It begins with a review of historical trends that caused Americans to move away from bicycling for transportation and choosing to adopt automobiles as the primary mode of transportation. A review of articles, reports, and studies is used to consider the benefits connected with utilitarian cycling and electing to bicycle for transportation. The report focuses on three prominent barriers that affect an individual‟s decision to bicycle: bicycle safety, bicycle consciousness, and bicycle infrastructure. The study discusses how these three obstacles are considerable factors affecting bicycling. The study also discusses a number of exemplary solutions for overcoming these barriers that have been implemented in bicycle-friendly cities in the United States. An analysis of plans and policies for the bicycle-friendly cities of Portland, Oregon and Davis, California is used to determine what historical actions have led to a more complete bicycle network in these two cities which have elected to promote bicycling. An in-depth evaluation of Boulder, Colorado, provides insight for specific plans that have been adopted and strategies that have proven to be successful in improving bicycling for transportation. The report attempts to demonstrate that bicycling can be made a viable means of transportation in United States‟ communities by adopting comprehensive plans and policies that address the challenges of bicycle safety, bicycle consciousness, and bicycle infrastructure simultaneously.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Huston Gibson / Studies have shown that, since the early 1980s, the prevalence of overweight children and youth in the U.S. has tripled from approximately five to 16 percent of the population. Simultaneously, fewer and fewer children have been walking and cycling to school. Children—especially those aged 10 to 15 years—have some of the highest per capita traffic-related bicycle fatality and injury rates. While bicycle organizations, states and communities across the country have developed a variety of education programs independently and cooperatively with the National Safe Routes to School program, there is a lack of evaluation of the impact on bicycle safety, of different programs in different contexts, and of whether educational interventions reduce the risk of crashes and injuries. This study evaluated the effectiveness of Safe Routes to School programs with in-school bicycle education at reducing the crash rate and improving the safety of children and youth cyclists. The causal-comparative research design utilized bicycle mode share data collected from the National Center for Safe Routes to School for five existing programs—Boulder Valley School District Safe Routes to School, Eugene-Springfield Safe Routes to School, Safe Routes Philly, Portland Safe Routes to School, and Marin County Safe Routes to School—and crash data before and after program implementation for those respective communities. The crash assessment revealed a decreasing trend in crashes involving children and youth cyclists around treatment schools in the Eugene, OR and Philadelphia, PA program study areas, and at the aggregate level across program areas; but, this trend was not statistically significant when compared to the change in crashes around control schools in a quasi-experimental analysis. Nevertheless, the increase in students cycling to and from school reported by all but one of the programs, and the increase in exposure to crash risk as a result, indicated that the Safe Routes to School programs did not cause a decrease in the safety of student cyclists. Additional rigorous evaluations are needed utilizing randomized controlled design to maximize the reliability of reported findings and to aid decisions about where to invest resources in community-based approaches to injury prevention for cyclists.

Bicycling as a mode of transportation has been increasing in recent years due to its environmental and health benefits. The availability of bicycles through bicycle share programs has made bicycling a more viable option. With this increase, there is a need for complementary improvements of bicycle infrastructure. Many local and regional transportation agencies are recognizing this need and developing a master plan or safety action plan to improve the city’s bicycle and walking facilities. This study examines bicycle travel demands and travel patterns in Lexington, Kentucky as generated by SPIN bicycle share users. It is hypothesized that the SPIN users emulate bicycle users on and around the University of Kentucky campus. Therefore, analyzing their travel patterns will provide a valuable understanding of bicycle demand and infrastructure needs. To identify such demand, travel patterns and routes were compared to the existing bicycle infrastructure in order to determine improvement needs with an ulterior goal to increase bicycling as a mode of transportation. The methods of study include five levels of analysis: length and duration, temporal, climatic, point density, and modeling. Recommendations for improving routes and parking facilities have been developed based on analytical methods and results obtained. The findings support the notion that bicycle infrastructure influences the travel paths cyclists take. The research supports the idea that commuters are using SPIN bicycles to chain their trips with transit and completing the last or first section of the trip with a bicycle. It was found that bicycle travel demand fluctuates with weather patterns. Furthermore, future work could use the existing data and conduct a detailed analysis on the individual trip level to determine what percentage of a completed trip was taken on an existing bicycle facility or on a non-facility. These findings should aid transportation planning and city officials to make decisions for expanding the existing bicycle network in efforts to minimize the percentage of cyclists who take a detour and the length of detours when necessary.

No description available.

Bicycle usage is increasing in urban (as well as rural) areas, which increases demand for better and safer infrastructure. Whilst the total number ofbicycle fatalities in European countries has been stable over the last ten years (:::: 2.000 fatalities per year for all European Union member states), bicycle fatalities and injuries in Germany have been increasing in this time. About two-thirds of all bicycle crashes in Germany occur at intersections, this proportion is highe:r than in Denmark and the N ethe:rlands (three-fi:fths). lntersections are tbus of high relevance for bicyclists' safety andin addition, they require sophisticated research methods because of their complex designs and the high numbers and types of uscr interactions and conflicts compared to street sections. This study analyses determinants of bicycle crashes at 269 signalised intersections in two major eitles in Germany (Dresden, Munich) as the basis for developing evidence-based recomm.endations for improving bicyclists' safety at existing intersections and for ensuring high safety levels at newly planned intersections from the very beginning. This study is part ofthe research project SiRou (nrvp.de/21520). The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport within the National Cycling Plan 2020(NRVP).

With aging, the sensory, motor, and central nervous system deficiencies lead to inadequate bicycle postural control in older cyclists. Similarly, variety in riding skills leads to different bicycle postural control strategies. Cycling seems to be an automated task but keeping the bicycle stable at low speed, pedaling, and steering requires continuous physical and cognitive effort, and in long term may lead to fatigue induced by steering and stabilizing the e-bike at low forward speeds especially in older cyclists. E-bikes enables riders to cycle for langer duration and distance by reducing the physical fatigue. There is an increasing societal interest in electric bicycles where in 2021, 26. 73 billion US dollars worldwide have been invested on e-bikes and by 2027 this global market size will increase to 53.53 billion US dollars (Statista). However, with increased numbers of e-bikes, bicycle accidents due to inadequate steering and balance control by older cyclists have increased, which suggests needs for extra safety measures to maintain balance on a bicycle for challenging situation such as facing undesired disturbances or low forward speeds. We developed a prototype steering assist which aims to increase safety and improve the user experience, by reducing the steering effort and enhancing the bicycle postural control (rider-bike balance control). We investigated the potential effectiveness ofthe steering assist technology in real life challenging situations. Our present study should be considered exploratory research to find the potential effectiveness of the steering assist technology in improving the user experience and safety compared to a non-assistive e-bike. The improved bicycle postural control is validated by smaller range, variability, and rate of steering and roll trajectories when the rider is subjected to an unwanted disturbance. Improved bicycle postural control is expected based on the reduced need for compensatory behavior in the presence of assistive technology. Decreased steering effort is expected due to reduced demand for acute steering control in the anticipatory control strategy.

No description available.

過去都市的發展與道路規劃多以汽機車為主體，對於自行車的騎乘環境相對不夠友善，而隨著近年國內自行車使用率逐年攀升，據資料指出自行車發生事故的機率也有提高的趨勢，顯示自行車於道路上之安全性考量更需重視。故本研究將針對台北市自行車肇事資料進行深入探討，找出影響肇事嚴重度之因素，進而從規劃設計面研擬降低自行車事故之改善策略。 本研究係以民國98年至102年台北市自行車事故資料為分析對象，將肇事嚴重程度分為「死亡或頭部受傷」、「人員受傷」及「未受傷」三類，同時根據文獻回顧及實務上所能取得之資料，蒐集人、路、環境等24項研究變數。首先透過統計分析了解肇事資料之特性，而後再以多項式羅吉斯迴歸模型，分別針對整體事故以及不同空間及不同事故型態之自行車肇事資料，建構自行車肇事嚴重度模型，以釐清影響自行車事故之主要因素。 研究結果顯示，道路因素中事故位置為路口及路段對於自行車事故皆有顯著影響，其中路口造成死亡或受傷之機率更高；環境因素中，因彎道或建物造成視距不良對於增加自行車事故亦有顯著影響，而坡道則會降低事故發生之機率；在人的因素中，18歲以下和年齡越大、酒駕、直行或右轉，皆會增加因自行車事故致死或受傷之機率。最後依據實證之結果，謹從交通管理中的3E政策-交通工程（Engineering）、交通教育（Education）及交通執法（Enforcement）三面向之觀念及角度帶入都市設計層面，提出道路及環境改善措施，以提升都市街道之自行車騎乘環境，並透過教育宣導、推廣活動及相關法令規範等配套措施，藉以增加自行車之騎乘安全。