Santa Barbara has been investing heavily in growing and improving its bicycle infrastructure, as have many other cities in this country. These investments lead to a growth in cycling but seem to plateau at around 8 percent. In Europe, however, there are many cities where cycling reaches 80-90 percent of the population. What accounts for the huge disparity?
The difference seems to be safety. In the Netherlands, for instance, bike and pedestrian safety is addressed holistically and uncompromisingly. Dutch road engineers continuously seek to remove “conflict points and zones” for riders, which mostly occur at intersections, transition sections, or stretches of roads where bikes are competing for space with other modes of transportation. In California, bike-lane engineering standards provide high-level safety between conflict points but not at intersections where conflict danger is greatest. We still prioritize speed and comfort for car drivers over the people that live, work, walk, and bike on our streets.
What does safe infrastructure look like? The Dutch have a lot of bike lanes that are separated and protected from cars with highly engineered intersections that almost eliminate interaction (conflict) between drivers and cyclists. Wherever the two have the possibility of interacting, the speed limits are below 20 miles per hour (mph) with cameras for enforcement. The Dutch know that slow cars are safer; fast cars are never safe. Eighty percent of all urban streets in Holland are posted at 18 mph or less, a speed at which collisions can cause serious but survivable injuries.