STUDIES THAT SUPPORT THE EFFECTIVENESS AND ACCEPTANCE OF BIKE BOXES
Speaking of bicycle-friendly , Portland , Oregon , was the first city in the United States to introduce large-scale bike box installations , implementing 12 bike boxes throughout the City ’ s center in 2008 . The bike boxes allow bicyclists to position themselves to go straight or turn right but not to turn left . To enhance the research potential of this pioneering experiment , the City colored nine of the boxes green and omitted the green on the other three so that potential differences in resulting traffic behavior could be studied .
Here , in a nutshell , are the results : The studied bike boxes were greeted positively by drivers and bicyclists , compliance was high among both groups , conflicts dropped , yielding increased , and encroachment of traffic on crosswalks was reduced , according to the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium ’ s January 2011 “ Evaluation of Bike Boxes at Signalized Intersections ” report . The report was prepared by Portland State University scholars for the City and OTREC .
The report states that its analysis was based on 918 hours of before-and-after video as well as surveys of 468 cyclists contacted at or near the intersections and 721 motorists recruited for the survey via email .
Even as the number of cyclists nearly doubled and motor vehicle right-turn volumes increased by 15 % from before to after , the number of observed conflicts in the intersections decreased from 29 to 20 from the before period to the after period .
Likewise , bike box locations displayed improved behavior among right-turning vehicles in terms of yielding to through bike traffic .
“ The surveys found that both motorists and cyclists perceived the intersections to be safer after the installation of the bike boxes ,” the OTREC report states . “ In particular , 42 % of motorists who are not cyclists felt driving through the intersections was safer with the bike boxes , compared with 14 % who felt it was more dangerous . Moreover , 77 % of cyclists felt bicycling through the intersections was safer with the bike boxes , compared with 2 % who felt it was more dangerous .”
4 | USING BIKE BOXES