Bike Surface

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Bike Surface: One of the most important outcomes of the study was discovering that a very high percentage (71%) of bicyclists in Jackson rode on the sidewalk instead of the road or bike lane. Although not a law in the city of Jackson, bicycles are much safer on the street.^4,5,6 One study in the late 1990’s found that the relative danger of riding on the sidewalks was much higher than riding on the street even without bike lanes or signs.⁴The table below shows that sidewalks are the most dangerous at a relative danger of 16.34, roads without bike facilities (like most in the Jackson survey) are less dangerous ranging from .66-.94 and roads with on-street bike lanes are the least dangerous with a relative danger of .41. From this it is clear that riding on the road is by far the safest surface to travel even without bike lanes.

Table 2: Relative Danger of Bicycle Riding in Different Conditions⁴

Facility	Relative Danger Index
Major street with no bike facility	0.66
Minor street with no bike facility	0.94
Signed bike route (no lane)	0.51
On-street bike lanes	0.41
Multi-use path/trail	1.39
Sidewalk	16.34

Surface Choice for Biking Volunteers were instructed to record whether bicyclists they saw were using the road, bike lane, or sidewalk for travel. If a cyclist switched from sidewalk to road within the volunteer’s field of vision they recorded which surface the person was first using. One of the locations was the Intercity Bike Trail. Since it is a designated bike space just like a bike lane the trail was counted as “bike lane” instead of road or sidewalk. Of the 397 bicyclists recorded during the survey 71% used the sidewalk for travel. A break down for each location is provided in Appendix F: Surface Choice for Biking. Figure 7-All Bicyclists Observed and Which Surface They Chose to Bike On
Helmet Use For bicyclists observed, volunteers recorded whether the person was wearing a helmet. Overall 92% were not wearing a helmet. Helmet use was even worse for 20 and younger age group with only 4% wearing a helmet. Eleven percent of 20-40 wore helmets and 16% of 40 and older wore helmets. Nine percent of men wore helmets while only 7% of females did so. A graph for each age and gender group is in Appendix G: Helmet Use.
Figure 8-Pecentage of All Bicyclists Observed Wearing a Helmet
Figure 9-Pecentage of All Bicyclists by Surface Both Roads have Bike Lanes
Figure 10-Pecentage of All Bicyclists by Surface Portion of Road has Bike Lanes
Figure 11-Pecentage of All Bicyclists by Surface Neither Road has Bike Lanes
Figure 12-Pecentage of All Bicyclists by Surface Neither Road has Bike Lanes
Figure 13-Choice of Biking Surface by Age These results represent all children in the youngest age group (under 20), but really only those under twelve should be counted as children for sidewalk usage. The adult trend stills holds true despite having a higher number of individuals classified in the children category.