Why Bike Lanes Are Good: An Explainer for the US Transportation Secretary

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy seems to have some inaccurate ideas about bike lanes — so Streetsblog USA created an explainer that outlines the hard data, much of it from the federal government’s own agencies.

The Federal Highway Administration's own website on bike lanes says that even just adding flexible plastic posts to paint-only on-road cycle paths can reduce total crashes up to 53 percent — and of course, putting harder infrastructure like concrete jersey barriers or curbs between cars and fragile human bodies is so much better that most researchers don't even bother to study it.

Data also shows that a sufficiently robust and safe bike lane network does encourage more people to ditch cars and use bikes instead. According to the article, “study after study shows that bike lanes do not make car congestion worse— and in some cases, especially in urban areas that place them strategically, they can actually make it better.”

Disputing Duffy's claim that bike funding takes away from other transportation projects, Streetsblog highlights how little funding actually goes toward bike lanes: “Per the League of American Bicyclists, less than 2 percent of federal transportation funding is spent on biking and walking combined, amounting to $2.36 per person per year.” We hope Secretary Duffy takes Streetsblog’s advice and takes a harder look at his own agencies’ numbers.