A new look at bicycle crash data shows 1,195 people have been involved in crashes in Ada County since 2007. Most were in Boise. Eleven of those crashes resulted in the death of the cyclist.
Paul Mitchell is a local geographer. He took data from the Idaho Transportation Department and crunched the numbers to find the most dangerous streets in the county. They include Fairview, State, Overland, Emerald, Orchard, Franklin, Broadway and Vista.
Mitchell says some of those streets, like Emerald, had bike lanes or other bike safety features. Others, like Fairview, did not. He says just having a white line on the roadway to separate bikes doesn’t guarantee safety.
“I would like to see us move beyond the conception of bicycle infrastructure being just bike lanes and painted lines to something that is really safe and separate,” Mitchell says.
There were more than 60 crashes on Fairview from 2007 to 2014. There were more than 30 on Emerald.
“There’s a lot of accidents happening out there and I think it’s surprising to know there’s been 11 fatalities in the last seven years, too. That’s a lot of people who have lost their life trying to travel by a bicycle.”
Mitchell says it’s important to listen to the data and hopefully it can steer bicycle policy in Ada County.
Find Samantha Wright on Twitter @samwrightradio
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