In Minneapolis, Reducing Bike Crashes by Studying Them in Detail

In the past ten years Minneapolis has made great strides toward becoming a friendlier bike city — bicycle commute share doubled to 3.4 percent, to name just one achievement — and in the years to come it's hoping to make even greater ones. Among the goals of the city's latest master bicycle plan is to reduce bike crashes by 10 percent. By doing that, Minneapolis hopes to convert a lot of hesitant riders into habitual ones.

As a first step toward this goal, the city recently conducted its first "comprehensive crash analysis": a thorough look at nearly 3,000 bike-car accidents that occurred between 2000 and 2010 (via Streetsblog). The resulting report, released earlier this month, should serve as a model for other cities hoping to reduce bike crashes by understanding how they happen. In the case of Minneapolis, the data pointed to infrastructure, driver awareness, and rider behavior as the three main factors contributing to crashes: