Ridership along protected bike lanes (PBL) is 80 percent higher than along standard bike lanes and more than four times higher than roads without bicycle facilities.

“The link between low-stress bicycle facilities and bicycle commuting,” published this month in the journal, Nature Cities, compared how newer facility types fare relative to standard bike lanes. “While surveys have shown that potential riders’ stated preferences are for lower-stress bicycle facilities such as PBLs, few studies have explored whether that preference translates to ridership.”

Researchers used six years of data (2014-19) across more than 14,000 block groups (a subdivision of a Census tract) in 28 U.S. cities.

Protected bicycle lanes experienced bicycle commuter increases vastly higher than other types of bicycle facilities:

• -- 1.8 times larger than standard bicycle lane block groups;
• -- 1.6 times larger than shared-lane marking block groups, and
• -- 4.3 times larger than block groups that did not install bicycle facilities.

Protected lane mileage installed was associated with increases in bicycle commuting of 52.5 percent more than standard bicycle lane mileage, and 281.2 percent stronger than shared-lane marking mileage.

A PBL is physically separated from motor vehicle traffic by a parking lane or some type of barrier. A standard bike lane is a portion of a street designated by pavement markings or signs for use by cyclists.
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