Daniel Majewski BAC Report Use of Colored Pavement for Intersection Crossings: A Study In this study, I will look

at three different documents that discuss the use of colored lane treatments. STUDY 1) NACTO Report on Colored Pavement Copy this link into your browser: http://nacto.org/wpcontent/uploads/2011/03/NACTO_UrbanBikeway_DesignGuide_MRez.pdf I will be referencing page numbers from this report throughout this summary. Though I encourage you to read through this entire document, I will be focusing on the segment about colored bike facilities. The segment about Colored Bike Facilities begins on p. 254. Pictures of treatment in other cities can be found on p. 271 and 272. These pictures provide a good example of the various ways colored markings can be used. Here is a list of cities that currently use this treatment: Austin, TX; Cambridge, MA; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Columbia, MO; Minneapolis, MN; Missoula, MT; New York, NY; Portland, OR; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Washington, DC. As of now, we could add Tucson to this list as well. As you can see, the list is quite extensive (p. 267). After looking through the NACTO report, I saw references to other reports on the topic. One that stood out to me was a report done by the city of Portland, OR in 1999 called Portlands Blue Bike Lanes.

STUDY 2) Link to the report here: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?a=58842&c=34772 This report is extensive, surveying four different intersections and the before and after results of installing blue colored pavement. The colored pavement was all installed in areas of intersection conflict. The results? Motorist behaviors: In the before period, 72% of motorists yielded to cyclists while 28% of cyclists yielded to motorists. In the after period, the percentage of motorists yielding increased to 92%, a 27% increase. (p. 14)

Cyclist viewpoints: The overwhelming majority (76%) felt that the locations were safer since the installation of blue pavement. (p. 16) Conclusions and Recommendations (p. 18) The blue bike lane study has had promising results. To recap, researchers found the following results: 1) Did motorists appear to yield more frequently to cyclists after the blue pavement application? YES: a statistically significant increase in motorists yielding to cyclists. 2) Did motorists appear to look for cyclists before crossing the bike lane more frequently than before? YES: a statistically significant increase in motorists slowing or stopping when approaching conflict areas. 3) Did motorists modify their behavior in any significant ways? YES: in addition to the increased slowing, a statistically significant decrease in turn signal use. 4) Did cyclists tend to look more frequently for motorists before proceeding through the painted area? NO: a statistically significant decrease in head turning and hand signaling. 5) Did cyclists modify their behavior in any significant ways? YES: in addition to the decreased head turning and hand signaling, a statistically significant increased use of the recommended path and decreased slowing when entering the conflict areas. 6) Did the number of conflicts and reported crashes change? YES, AND UNKNOWN: The number of conflicts decreased, although the numbers are small. Data on reported crashes subsequent to the blue markings is not yet available.

STUDY 3) Link here: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/researchcenter/Completed_Proj/Summary_SF/FDOT_BA784_Evaluation%20of%20a%20Green %20Bike%20Lane%20Weaving%20Area%20in%20St.%20Petersburg,%20Florida.pdf In this study, when surveying a stretch of colored bike lane, the authors sometimes observed confusion on the part of the motorists: Figure 8. Motorist queue to turn right. That a lower percentage of motorists used the green bike lane weaving area during the after periods is somewhat puzzling. Sometimes a

motorist would drive all the way past the weaving area to move into the right-turn lane, even though there was plenty of space ahead of the bicyclist to enable use of the weaving area. At other times a motorist would turn behind the bicyclist before reaching the green bike lane weaving area. In addition, there was no difference in the percentage of times the motorist turned ahead or behind the bicyclist using the green bike lane weaving area, even with the increased yielding. Perhaps some motorists never understood the intent of the weaving area and simply stayed out of it after the coloring was added.

PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS After looking through the literature, its hard to reach a conclusion. However, the Portland study, which was the most through, showed a multitude of positive benefit as a result of the colored improvements.