Safety Got Worse Before it Got Better on Cincinnati's Central Parkway Bike Lane

The controversy over a protected bike lane along Central Parkway in Cincinnati continues. The latest grist for the mill comes from a report finding that crashes increased in the first complete year of the lane's operation.

1 minute read

August 3, 2016, 1:00 PM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Central Parkway

A group ride on Central Parkway protected bike lane in Cincinnati. | 5chw4r7z / Flickr

Chris Wetterich reports from Cincinnati: "A new city study of crash data found that the number of car crashes on Central Parkway experienced an uptick after the city installed a controversial protected bikeway along the road in 2014 but has fallen in recent months."

"The total number of crashes in 2012 along the road from Liberty to Linn streets was 57 compared with 62 in 2015," according to Wetterich, though for "the first four months of 2016, the number of crashes – 14 – has decreased compared to the same periods in 2015 and 2012, when there were 19 and 17, respectively."

The Central Parkway bike lane project inspired controversy, right up until it opened, as Planetizen documented in October and April of 2014. According to Wetterich, the controversy continues, though a majority of the Cincinnati City Council wants to keep the bike lanes.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016 in Cincinnati Business Courier

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