Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety
The Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety (CPBS) is a Tier-1 University Transportation Center (UTC) funded by the US DOT.
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CPBS's goal is to eliminate pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries via research, education, technology transfer, and workforce development.
Announcements
July 01, 2025
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CPBS releases Pedestrian Outreach Report
The NMDOT Pedestrian Outreach Program report offers a comprehensive look at effective pedestrian engagement strategies from across North America. Developed to support New Mexico’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, the study outlines methods for building public trust, gathering meaningful input, and tailoring outreach to diverse communities. It includes actionable recommendations and tools to help create sustainable, statewide engagement frameworks for pedestrian safety outreach and community involvement.
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FREE WEBINAR SERIES
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Tuesday July 8th, 2025 at Noon MDT / 2pm EDT
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Redefining Normal: A New Post-Fatal Crash Response
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>> REGISTER HERE <<
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Presented by Kevin J. Krizek and Tila Duhaime
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Learn about the new Emergency Streets (ES) protocol that enables municipal agencies to respond quickly, visibly, and responsibly to the most serious roadway crashes in their jurisdiction: those resulting in serious injury and/or death. The ES approach demonstrates to staff, public officials, and the public at large that when someone dies in a traffic crash, an effective countermeasure is already within reach, and is preferable, rather than a return to "normal" traffic operations on roadways that have proven to be fatal. It highlights reasons why we might not want that road to return to the previous state; spurs new conversations about the purpose of transport services; and demonstrates the feasibility for a safer, alternative design for the very section of road.
The protocol empowers community leaders (who often feel pressured to respond to fatal crashes with more than condolences) to temporarily install a set of quick-build, mobile, and generally reusable traffic-calming infrastructure within hours of a fatal crash. A uniform set of tools is deployed to reduce crash-related kinetic energy—a fundamental reason for fatalities on local roadways—regardless of other factors. Within 48 hours of an incident, a variety of mobile or modular devices and signage would be installed at the crash site to slow motor vehicle traffic by approximately 20 mph.
June 02, 2025
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The link between low-stress bicycle facilities and bicycle commuting
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Build it, and they will come 🚴
Protect it, and even more will come 🚴🚴🚴
In a new Nature Cities paper, CPBS director Nick Ferenchak longitudinally examined bike commuting trends for 14,011 block groups across 28 U.S. cities. The installation of standard bike lanes was found to be associated with increased ridership, as has been established by past research. The installation of protected bike lanes was associated with bike commuter increases that were 1.8 times larger than standard bike lanes and 4.3 times larger than areas that didn’t install any bike facilities. Block groups that installed shared lane markings saw larger ridership increases than block groups that did nothing, but that increase became non-significant once bike lanes were accounted for.
The results can be interpreted as a general validation of stress-based planning tools such as Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress. Cities that seek to boost bicycle commute mode shifts should focus on implementing low-stress bicycle facilities if they want to best facilitate the sizable population of less-confident potential riders.
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The paper is open-access so feel free to share.
August 26, 2024
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CPBS releases first three publications from 2023 projects
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