Cycling safety on bikeways vs. roads

A short reply to a paper titled, "The Bikeway Controversy," by J. Forester, published in this journal (Volume 55, Number 2, Spring 2001) is presented. The author disputes Forester's conclusion that separate facilities for cycling are unnecessary and dangerous and instead cites evidence that cycling is much safer and more popular in European countries where bikeways, bike lanes, special intersection modifications and priority traffic signals are the key to their bicycling policies. He also gives the example of Davis, California, as an American city with extensive bicycling facilities, high bicycling modal split share, and low fatality and accident rate. The author summarizes measures that would improve bicycling conditions and that would permit vehicular cycling as well as cycling on separate facilities. He also cites public opinion surveys that show people believe that bikeways are safer than cycling on roadways and that they would be far more likely to cycle if they had bikeways available.