BIKE PATHS: FEWER INJURIES AND DEATHSAlthough Oregon's most congested areas have seen an increase in bike lanes and overall accessibility, between 1986 and 1995, 115 bicyclists were killed and 1,012 were injured on Oregon's roads. Compare the high numbers of bicycle deaths in two of Oregon's cities 40 in Portland and 14 in Salem to the number of bicycle deaths in Davis, California, during the same time period: zero. Davis is cited as "an example of how bicycling can be more accessible and safer," in a report released earlier this year entitled "Share the Road." The low cyclist fatality rate is not due to a low number of cyclists, says Tim Bustos, the city's bicycle safety coordinator. "What makes Davis significant is that everybody rides a bike here," he said. "You see businessmen riding to work on bikes, kids going to school and even women wearing dresses riding bikes."
Davis, a town of 46,000, has built many miles of bike lanes and trails, implemented education and enforcement campaigns, and acted to ensure that cars and bicycles share the road, and in doing so has proved the correlation between investing in bicycle space and a lower bicycle fatality and injury rate.
—Reprinted with permission of Oregon Cycling Magazine, Fall 1997.
