Webinar on Safety Evaluation of Bicycling and Walking Improvements

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The District has installed biking and walking  infrastructure throughout the city with the hopes of reducing injuries and fatalities and making moving about safer for the most vulerable road users.

However, what are the steps or standards that transporation professionals use to analyze data collected from improvements? How do they use this information to evaluate if an improvement should be expanded or or removed? How can someone who isn't a transportation professional understand what it all means?

Hoping to shead light on these questions, the Pedestrian and Bicycling Information Center (PBIC) will hold a webinar: Determining the Safety Impacts of Bicycling and Walking Investments, Monday, December 11, 2017 between 1:00-2:30pm.

According to the PBIC, the webinar will discuss the complexities of analyzing data to deterime if pedestrians and bicyclists infrastructure safety improvements, or countermeasures, are actually achieved. While transportation professionals typically look to a toolbox of countermeasures that are proven to reduce crashes, the determination of the safety effectiveness of improvements is a complex process.

Presentations will be led by Daniel Carter and Raghavan Srinivasan, Senior Research Associates at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Highway Safety Research Center. During the webinar, the researchers will discuss the value of crash modification factors, which quantify a countermeasure’s ability to reduce crashes involving bicyclists and pedestrians. Panelists will explore methods for conducting high-quality safety evaluations and provide tips for determining the effects of safety improvements. Following their presentations, panelists will respond to questions from attendees.

The webinar is free but participants must register.