Exploring the Role of Arterial Roads’ Characteristics on Pedestrian and Cyclist Crashes

Project Description

Over the last decade, over 80% of the increase in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities occurred on arterial roads. However, there have been limited studies on the built environment's impact on pedestrian and cyclist safety on arterial roads. While the previous research emphasizes the need for additional understanding of the role of arterial infrastructure on safety, they acknowledge the importance of including data such as pedestrian and bicyclist exposure to better understand how this road feature affects vulnerable users’ safety.

Hence, this study aims to understand the traffic and built environment-related variables that underlie the occurrence of crashes on arterial roads in the mid-region of New Mexico by answering the following research questions: i) whether high-speed, high-access roads are more likely to experience crashes than roads with better access management and/or slower speeds. The findings from this inquiry will enlighten the subsequent questions: ii) Do more driveways per mile correlate to more non-motorized injury crashes per mile? iii) What other factors related to the arterial built environment and demographic spatially correlate with a higher likelihood of pedestrian and bicycle crashes?

As a methodology, we plan to use a combination of spatial analysis and econometric modeling to answer the research question presented previously. The findings from this project are timely and relevant, given the apparent lack of prior research on the safety performance of arterial roads considering vulnerable road users' perspective. By examining safety trends in New Mexico, researchers and policymakers can gain valuable insights into the specific factors contributing to road safety outcomes in different geographic areas.