Prioritizing Bicyclist Safety and Mobility: Which Guidance Do I Use?

Historically bicyclists may have been an afterthought and expected to share space with motor vehicles, however, this is outdated attitude is giving way to new approaches found in various bicycle infrastructure design guidance documents. This study used a multi-staged approach to investigate the usage of these guides by state and local agencies. A literature review synthesized literature and published guides on bicycle infrastructure design and was followed by a survey of bicycle / pedestrian coordinators to gather information from practitioners about their use of these design guides. Data collected were analyzed to identify trends, relationships, and gaps in the knowledge about bicycle infrastructure design guidance. From this, it was found that the two federally published guidance documents (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and the Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (GDBF)) were the most frequently utilized by these survey respondents and were noted to be held as the standard for bicyclist infrastructure planning and design by some, however they are sparsely updated and tend not to align with contemporary community expectations. Additionally, states tended to rely on the MUTCD and GDBF while cities utilized a larger variety of guidance documents such as those published by NACTO The data was developed through a survey sent to practitioners from the 50 states of the United States including the district of Columbia and the top 25 most populous cities, survey respondent data were collected.长期以来，自行车骑行者常被视作次要交通参与者，被要求与机动车共享道路空间，而这种过时的理念正逐步被各类自行车基础设施设计指导文件中提出的新方案所取代。本研究采用多阶段研究方法，旨在调研美国各州及地方机构对此类指导文件的使用情况。研究首先通过文献综述整合了自行车基础设施设计相关的学术文献与已发布的指导文件，随后针对自行车/行人协调专员开展问卷调查，从行业从业者处收集其使用此类设计指导文件的相关信息。研究对收集到的数据开展分析，以梳理自行车基础设施设计指导相关认知中的趋势、关联与知识空白。结果显示，两项联邦发布的指导文件——《统一交通控制设施手册》（Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices，MUTCD）与《自行车设施开发指南》（Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities，GDBF）——是本次受访对象最常使用的资料，部分受访者将其视为自行车基础设施规划与设计的行业标准；但此类文件更新频率极低，且往往无法契合当代社区的实际需求。此外，各州机构更倾向于依赖MUTCD与GDBF，而城市机构则会使用更多样化的指导文件，例如美国国家城市交通官员协会（National Association of City Transportation Officials，NACTO）发布的相关指南。本研究的数据来源于一项面向美国50个州（含哥伦比亚特区）及人口排名前25的城市的从业者开展的问卷调查，最终收集到了受访对象的相关数据。