Safe Main Street Highways Part II: Analyses of Collisions Involving Pedestrians and Bicyclists in Washington State

Abstract

This project contributes to the Washington State Strategic Highway Safety Plan, whose goals are to achieve zero road fatality and serious injury by 2030 and to reduce the number of pedestrians and bicyclists involved in motor-vehicle collisions on state highways. The study focused on “main street highways” (MSHs), which are stretches of State Routes that also act as main streets for the local populations. This report covers Part II of the study, which (1) identified hotspots of pedestrian and bicyclist collisions, and (2) developed models for estimating socio-economic and environmental predictors of collision locations. Collision hotspots were derived from Planar and novel Network Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) methods. Case-control and negative binomial models showed that high risk pedestrian and bicyclist collision locations were significantly associated with collisions occurring (1) at street and road intersections (versus mid-blocks); (2) on wider roads; (3) on roads with bicycle lanes; (4) in low income and non-white neighborhoods.