Last month, a young woman was jogging along the popular new Katy Trail in Dallas, Texas, wearing headphones. She turned left and was struck by a woman on a bicycle. The jogger’s head hit the pavement. Several days later, she died. This study will focus on the question of whether Shared Use Paths (SUP) are either safer than other transportation options, or less safe than other transportation options. … Shared Use Paths … “ as transportation corridors, rather than parks, is being pushed increasingly at a local level, and even promoted by the feds, including in a recent interview with U.S. Department of Transportation” The article goes on to state that “It should be no surprise that these paths see a high collision and injury rate. A 2009 literature review of traffic safety studies looked at bicycle crashes and discovered that multi-use paths are more dangerous to ride on than even major roads.” However, Priscilla LeClerc from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission counters this view and says that the data is old and that there are new numbers out there to suggest that they are safer. She states the FARS study which is the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). This study the Commission asserts, proves that SUPs are safer because recent studies show that the ratio of deaths in SUPs are less than those on major roads. However, this reasoning is flawed. The databases actually do not tally any deaths or injuries within SUPs but only those occurring when a motor vehicle hits a cyclist, and pedestrians are not counted in this study. This is only for deaths caused by motor vehicles to cyclists. In another disturbing note in how the Martha’s Vineyard Commission allows numbers to be bandied about without apples to apples comparison, Ms. LeClerc is using as her reference point SUPs that are protected by adequate space and or barriers. In the instance of the proposed SUP on Beach Road between Winds Up and the Tisbury Marketplace the protection is provided only by a 3 to 4 foot grass strip which is allowed by MassDOT providing “waivers”. “Shared trails are being heavily funded on the federal level, with politicians and advocates claiming major bike-friendliness points.” And certainly this is the case on Martha’s Vineyard. … “many of these paths would not be adequate for bicycle traffic. Sight lines are not good, there is often no lane to pass slower riders, and the number of users keeps going up, up, and up.” We should focus on this point for a moment because it is key; “there is often no lane to pass slower riders”. How apropos. There is often no lane to pass slower riders. Slower riders. Could they be referring to those who the Planning Board and the MV Commission call “inexperienced riders”? Ah, so there is a problem with “slower riders”. We find this to be of great interest. “A few weeks ago, just outside of Washington, D.C., a woman was hit and killed by a man on a bicycle while walking on a paved multi-use trail, aka a “bike path.” It was a tragic accident.” … “When various news sites reported the story online, the comments were predictably absurd. There were all sorts of attacks on bikes that reflected more on anti-bike sentiment than on the incident in question. “The path is for everyone not a bunch of spandex wearing Armstrong wannabes,” wrote one commenter. A member of the Fairfax Underground forum posted a story about the incident under this headline: “Bicyclist Mows Down Old Lady and Kills Her.” “Kill all cyclists,” replied a second member, “problem solved.” “A little more attention to the specifics, and the authors of these remarks would have known how off-base they were. The bike rider in this incident was a man in his early 60s. He was riding an $88 department store bike, a NEXT Power Climber. I doubt that he was training for a race. He claims he gave both a ring of his bell and an audible, “on your left,” to the elderly pedestrian. But apparently the alert caused her to step in front of him rather than out of his way. The collision knocked her backward onto the pavement, according to the police report, where she struck her head.” These stories serve to illustrate that bicycle/pedestrian accidents do happen. They are often fatal. And it serves to show us that Shared Use Paths are not the panacea to slow riders that the Commission would have us believe. To be continued…

The Shining Sea bicycle path in Falmouth is very much a shared use path. On crowded summer days bicyclists and pedestrians shared the path. And it is very crowded in the summer. The shared use path from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown is similar. It gets very crowded with pedestrians, strollers and even many first time bicycle riders in the summer. I would not expect the proposed Beach Road shared use path to be much different.