The Impact of Vision Zero Initiatives on Cyclist Safety in New York City

Alex Phares*, Amdad Hossen, Kakan Dey, Ph.D.
Wadsorth Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Presentation Category: Physical Sciences & Engineering (Poster presentation)

Student’s Major: Civil Engineering

Despite modern safer vehicles, improved transportation infrastructure, advanced traffic signals, and safety countermeasures, more than 35,000 Americans die from traffic crashes every year. With the goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero, New York City (NYC) adopted Vision Zero (VZ) in 2014 and has been deploying many initiatives aimed at increasing roadway safety. In order to evaluate the success of the VZ initiatives, NYC traffic fatality data was analyzed to measure the impact of VZ programs. Both motorist and pedestrian yearly fatalities declined after VZ initiatives, while cyclist yearly fatalities increased. This reveals that current VZ efforts to increase safety in New York City are not effective for safety of cyclists. The potential reason could be inadequate facilities/initiatives to accommodate bicycle travel (e.g., narrow bike lanes, unsafe turns for cyclists, drivers’ underestimating the safety of cyclists). As a result, a comprehensive assessment of VZ initiatives’ effectiveness to improve cyclist safety is critical for its success. Using NYC Vision Zero spatial data (e.g., bicycle crash data, bike priority areas, enhanced crossings, street improvement corridors and crossings, neighborhood slow zones, presence of bike lane), a difference-in-difference method will be applied to the treatment and control areas with before and after VZ implementation statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of VZ components to improve cyclist safety. Based on the findings of the analysis, potential safety initiatives and policy suggestions will be developed to improve cyclist safety in NYC.

Funding: Not funded

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP) & accompanying HONR 297-level course