Further analysis has been completed by Gorski Consulting at the Colborne Street site from video documentations completed on August 29, 2023. In a recent article Gorski Consulting reported how cyclist travel paths changed as a result of the new cycling lane. Now additional analysis has been completed which shows how the travel paths of City of London transit buses have also been affected by the new cycling lane.
It can be recalled that the lateral travel paths of four categories of traffic units were reported in recent Gorski Consulting articles. Cyclists, Transit buses, large trucks and light duty motor vehicles were the four categories. This data was from a time when a cycling lane did not yet exist on Colborne Street. Then in August, 2023, the City of London completed installation of the cycling lane. Now we are attempting to compare the travel paths of these four categories of traffic units to determine if and how the cycling lane installation made a difference. Analysis has now been completed on two of those four categories, cyclists and transit buses and the results are shown in the table below.
For example, before the cycling lane was installed the average lateral position of cyclists was 0.71 metres west of the edge of the concrete gutter of the northbound lane of Colborne. After the cycling lane was completed the average lateral position of cyclists was reduced to 0.58 metres. So cyclists appear to have moved closer to the right curb after the installation of the cycling lane. It can also be seen in the above table that the variance in those travel paths was reduced.
With respect to City of London Transit buses the average lateral position was 0.87 metres before the cycling lane was completed. But after completion of the cycling lane that position became 1.57 metres.
An important observation is that, before the cycling lane transit buses and cyclists travelled close to each other (cyclists 0.71 metres, transit buses 0.87 metres) but after the cycling lane installation that gap became approximately one metre (cyclists 0.58 metres, transit buses 1.57 metres). Although there are some negatives with installation of a painted cycling lane this study shows that there are some positive effects on cyclist safety,
It needs to be emphasized that these findings are limited. They only discuss the average lateral positions of these units, not how they behave when they encounter each other. Do transit buses move away from cyclists when passing them and is this avoidance greater when a cycling lane exists? That question still remains to be reviewed. Unfortunately there are very few northbound transit buses travelling through the site so the opportunities of documenting one which is passing a cyclist are few. Our data shows that a northbound transit buses only passes through the site once every fifteen minutes.
Analysis is progressing with the documentation of the other two categories of traffic units: large trucks and light-duty vehicles.
There are actually very few large northbound trucks passing through the site. Instead this category contains over-size delivery vans and some school buses.
There is an over-abundance of light-duty vehicles such that we must take only a small segment of this category. Arbitrarily, we have chosen to commence documentation at a half hour into the video and only through documentation of just 10 observations. Without such limitations we would have far too many observations.
Once this additional analysis is completed we will once again review the findings.
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