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Memo of Transmittal
To: San Luis Obispo Town Council
From: Quinn Tirpak
Date: November 27, 2016
Subject: Proposal to improve bike safety in San Luis Obispo
Attached is the requested recommendation report concerning the safety of
cyclists in San Luis Obispo. The purpose of this report is to recommend a
solution to enhance the safety of those cycling in SLO.

Recommendations
This report evaluates two possible solutions, as follows:
The installation of integrated bike lanes on existing roadways
The installation of separated bike lanes on existing roadways

Methods
In order to make an informed recommendation, the following sources were
used in order to research the two possibilities.
Primary source:
o Survey of the Class of 2019
Secondary sources:
o Various peer-reviewed journal articles and studies

Findings
The findings of this research can be found in the Results section of the
following report. The drawn conclusions are found in the Conclusion section.

Final Reccomendation:
Through this research, I recommend installing integrated bike lanes on preexisting roadways throughout SLO. This will help improve the safety of
cyclists without costing more than the town can afford.
Thank you for your consideration of this report.

Table Of Contents

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Introduction
4
Background
4
Organization
Methods
Surveys
Survey of Class of 2019 students
Scholarly Articles
5
Results
Surveys
Survey of Class of 2019 students
Scholarly Articles
6-7
Conclusions
7-8
Recommendations
8
References
9-10

5-6

Table of Figures
Figure 1
5
Figure 2
5
Figure 3
5
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
7

Survey results
Survey results
Survey results
Sharrow
Bike Lane
Separated Bike Lane

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7

Introduction
Background
The most common type of bicycle infrastructure in San Luis Obispo currently
is referred to as sharrows by the cycling community. These sharrows allow
cyclists to utilize the full lane with other traffic. The inherent danger here is
that the full lane is shared, and the cyclists are not separated from motorist
traffic. Safer, more effective bike-specific infrastructure include bike lanes,
as well as separated bike ways[1].
Bike lanes are still part of the flow of traffic, but are marked off, and are a
designated section of the road. The advantage here is that it doesnt need
extensive new structure or space, but can be much safer than a shared lane,
since there is some visual separation between motorists and cyclists[2].
Separated bike lanes are similar to normal bike lanes, but include a physical
curb between cyclists and motorists. These lanes avoid some aspects that
leave bike lanes with some danger, including street sign issues and parked
cars[3]. This adds another level of safety, and have been used in some cities
quite successfully.
Organization
This recommendation is made up of two main parts after this introduction.
The first outlines the primary and secondary sources used to research this
problem, and the second outlines the results found through this research.
The report then recommends one of the following options to help improve
the current situation in San Luis Obispo:
The implementation of marked but integrated bike lanes to existing
roads.
The implementation of separated bike lanes to existing roads.

Methods
Primary Methods
Online Survey
63 students responded to the following survey:
How often do you bike through SLO?
Have you ever been hit or run off the run in SLO?
Do you feel safe riding your bike in SLO?
If you drive in SLO, do you ever get held up by bikers in shared space?

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This survey was not very in depth, but the concept was to design this survey
to get a better grasp on how much of the student population was impacted
by the current bike-infrastructure in SLO.
Secondary Methods
Scholarly Articles
Cycling to work in 90 large American cities: new evidence on the
role of bike paths and lanes
This article uses a variety of statistical analysis for 90 of the cities with the
highest populations in the US.
"The impact of transportation infrastructure on bicycling injuries
and crashes: a review of the literature"
This article takes a close look at several different studies that have been
done regarding bike safety with the implementation of bike infrastructure.
This will provide insight as to how safe different types of bike infrastructure
are.
"Perception of Safety and Liking Associated to the Colour
Intervention of Bike Lanes: Contribution from the Behavioural
Sciences to Urban Design and Wellbeing"
This study looks at the possibility of color impacting the effectiveness of
bicycle infrastructure on roadways. It used a sample of 538 participants to
look into which color would be most likely to protect a biker from other
motorist traffic.
"Bike Lane Design: the Context Sensitive Approach"
This article talks about the implementation of the right type of bike lane
based on the location and situation. I will use this article to try to best
propose infrastructure appropriate to SLO based on traffic volume, cost, and
other limiting factors.
"The cost-effectiveness of bike lanes in New York City"
This article discusses the cost and benefits of bike lanes for the city of new
York. Although this is a much larger city than San Luis Obispo, the
implications can still be used to help analyze the cost-benefit ratio in SLO.

Results
The data gathered from my survey provided insights into how the students of
Cal Poly are impacted by the lack of bicycle-specific infrastructure in the
town of San Luis Obispo. My secondary sources helped define different
potential solutions, the advantages and disadvantages of each, as well as
the cost of each possible solution.
Primary Sources
Online Survey

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Of the 63 students surveyed, 23(36.5%) ride their bikes almost every day or
everyday[4].
13(20.6%) of the 63 students have been hit or run off the road by a car[4].
46(73%) students feel safe biking in the town of San Luis Obispo[4].

Figure 1: Students who have been hit or run off the road
Figure 2: Students who feel safe biking in SLO

40(63.5%) students drive through

SLO and have been delayed by
bicycles in shared
infrastructure[4]. If the
infrastructure for bicycles was
improved, the amount of cyclists
in mixed traffic areas would
decrease, helping alleviate the
slow-downs caused by mixed use
regions.

Figure 3: Students who have been slowed down by bikes

Secondary Sources
Scholarly Articles
Cycling to work in 90 large American cities: new evidence on the
role of bike paths and lanes
This article analyzed 90 different American cities with varying bicycle
infrastructure. The results found in this study showed that they could model
the amount of bike-commuting traffic on a computer very accurately based
on different factors of the city environment. This also showed that both
separated bike paths and integrated bike lanes help improve the safety of
the cyclists. This also shows that the number of people commuting on bikes

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increases with the implementation of either of these types of
infrastructure[1].
"The impact of transportation infrastructure on bicycling injuries
and crashes: a review of the literature"
This article is a review and analysis of several other studies done regarding
cyclist safety. The studies clearly show that on a normal section of road, the
safety of cyclists is in the greatest danger when in a mixed environment or
while on a sidewalk mixed with pedestrians. The safest alternatives are with
integrated bike lanes or separated paths. The studies also looked at
intersections for bike safety. The danger for cyclists at multi-lane
intersections, especially traffic circles, is great. However, the best way to
reduce this risk is to add bike lanes or separated bike paths, which was
shown to improve safety substantially[2].
"Perception of Safety and Liking Associated to the Colour
Intervention of Bike Lanes: Contribution from the Behavioural
Sciences to Urban Design and Wellbeing"
This study was designed to find out if color impacted the effectiveness of
bicycle-specific infrastructure on roadways. This study not only revealed that
it does have an impact, but that sometimes it is more important than the
actual construction quality of the bike lane. By testing with 538 participants,
the study showed that red was the most effective color in grabbing drivers
attention. This study shows that not only is it important that bike
infrastructure be implemented, but also that it matters how it is
implemented[3].
"Bike Lane Design: the Context Sensitive Approach"
This article examined a section of bike path in a city in Europe to find how
effective it really was and how it could be improved. It found that although
many parts were working well, there were some factors that could be further
improved. One of the most important factors found to influence biker safety
was the condition of the pavement of the path. This would apply to on-road
bike lanes as well. The biggest impacts on safety included areas that had
cars parked on or near the path, potholes and other pavement problems, and
signs and posts in the path. By removing obstacles and rough patches of
pavement, the safety of cyclists is improved[5].
"The cost-effectiveness of bike lanes in New York City"
This article looks at the cost of bike lane per added quality-adjusted life year
of the average user. In this study, it shows that although the cost of bike
lanes is high in a large city like New York, the benefit is also great. The
expansion of bike lanes in New York would likely cost about eight million
dollars, but could increase the number of safe cyclists by up to 10%. It also
brings the cost/quality life year to about 1300 dollars per added quality

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adjusted year of life[6]. This is not very expensive in the grand scheme of
things.

Conclusions
Although San Luis Obispo is considered a fairly bike-friendly city within
California, the safety of cyclists remains an issue for those who commute
frequently within town. Some of the more dangerous roads
in San Luis Obispo currently use a sharrow system, as
seen in figure 4. The sharrow system forces motorists and
cyclists to share roadway, endangering the cyclist and
potentially slowing the motorist.
My first solution is to install non-separated, bike-specifically
lanes to existing roadways in San Luis Obispo(see figure 5).
Studies have shown that these bike lanes can improve the
safety of cyclists significantly. This happens because there
is a visual separation between bikers and motorists for both
to obey. These lanes are also easy and cheap to install,
since they only require the repainting of the road surface.

Figure 4: Example of a sharrow

However, there are some downsides to this

solution. First, these bike lanes are not
physically separated, so cars and cyclists still
wind up able to mix and share space. Second,
the installation of these bike lanes may require
the re-sizing of roads in some areas and the
removal of street-side parking in some
instances[3].
My second solution is the implementation of
separated, designated bike lanes on roadways in
SLO. This solution separates the cyclists from the motorists, further
improving the safety of the cyclist. This is safer than the non-separated bike
lane, and also helps
traffic move faster,
since cars dont have to
slow down to pass
bikes.

Figure 5: Integrated bike lane

However, this solution

Similarly to above,
be some re-arranging of
layouts in order to
lane for bikes. This
also much more
separated bike lanes[2].

Figure 6: Seperated Bike Lane

is not without flaws.

there may have to
current street
incorporate a new
type of bike lane is
expensive than non-

The first solution makes more sense in San Luis Obispo, given the cost and
time required to create separated bike lanes. Although separated bike lanes
are ideal from a standpoint of a cyclist, they are not always conceivable to
integrate into a pre-existing infrastructure.

Recommendation
Based on my research, I recommend that the town of San Luis Obispo install
non-separated bike lanes that are marked separately from motorist lanes of
traffic to better ensure the safety of cyclists. Moving forward, the Town of
San Luis Obispo should address this issue by budgeting the installation of
new bike lanes, as well as the improvement of previously existing bike
infrastructure. This can include the removal of obstacles, improvement of
pavement, and the addition of color to help visibility.

References
[1]R. Buehler and J. Pucher, "Cycling to work in 90 large American cities: new
evidence on the
role of bike paths and lanes", Transportation, vol. 39,
no. 2, pp. 409-432, 2011.
[2]C. Reynolds, M. Harris, K. Teschke, P. Cripton and M. Winters, "The impact
of transportation
infrastructure on bicycling injuries and crashes: a
review of the literature",
Environmental Health, vol. 8, no. 1, 2009.
[3] P. Vera-Villarroel, D. Contreras, S. Lillo, C. Beyle, A. Segovia, N. Rojo, S.
Moreno and F. Oyarzo, "Perception of Safety and Liking Associated to the
Colour Intervention of Bike Lanes: Contribution from the Behavioural
Sciences to Urban Design and Wellbeing", PLOS ONE, vol. 11, no. 8, p.
e0160399, 2016.
[4]C. Class of 2019, 2016.

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[5]G. Dondi, A. Simone, C. Lantieri and V. Vignali, "Bike Lane Design: the
Context Sensitive
Approach", Procedia Engineering, vol. 21, pp. 897906, 2011.
[6]J. Gu, B. Mohit and P. Muennig, "The cost-effectiveness of bike lanes in
New York City", Injury Prevention, pp. injuryprev-2016-042057, 2016.

Figures Referenced:
[1] C. Class of 2019, 2016.
[2] http://www.bikearlington.com/tasks/sites/bike/assets/Image/Bike_Lane.jpg
[3] https://richmondva.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/picture1.jpg
[4] http://www.bikecleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Sharrow.jpg