Impacts of Bicycle Infrastructure in Mid-Sized Cities (IBIMS): protocol for a natural experiment study in three Canadian cities

Abstract

IntroductionBicycling is promoted as a transportation and population health strategy globally. Yet bicycling has low uptake in North America (1%–2% of trips) compared with European bicycling cities (15%–40% of trips) and shows marked sex and age trends. Safety concerns due to collisions with motor vehicles are primary barriers.To attract the broader population to bicycling, many cities are making investments in bicycle infrastructure. These interventions hold promise for improving population health given the potential for increased physical activity and improved safety, but such outcomes have been largely unstudied. In 2016, the City of Victoria, Canada, committed to build a connected network of infrastructure that separates bicycles from motor vehicles, designed to attract people of ‘all ages and abilities’ to bicycling.This natural experiment study examines the impacts of the City of Victoria’s investment in a bicycle network on active travel and safety outcomes. The specific objectives are to (1) estimate changes in active travel, perceived safety and bicycle safety incidents; (2) analyse spatial inequities in access to bicycle infrastructure and safety incidents; and (3) assess health-related economic benefits.Methods and analysisThe study is in three Canadian cities (intervention: Victoria; comparison: Kelowna, Halifax). We will administer population-based surveys in 2016, 2018 and 2021 (1000 people/city). The primary outcome is the proportion of people reporting bicycling. Secondary outcomes are perceived safety and bicycle safety incidents. Spatial analyses will compare the distribution of bicycle infrastructure and bicycle safety incidents across neighbourhoods and across time. We will also calculate the economic benefits of bicycling using WHO’s Health Economic Assessment Tool.Ethics and disseminationThis study received approval from the Simon Fraser University Office of Research Ethics (study no. 2016s0401). Findings will be disseminated via a website, presentations to stakeholders, at academic conferences and through peer-reviewed journal articles.

An economic analysis of the health-related benefits associated with bicycle infrastructure investment in three Canadian cities

“…The IBIMS project received approval from the Simon Fraser University Office of Research Ethics (study number 2016s0401). Survey participants in the IBIMS project provided written consent prior to participation [ 16 ].…”

“…IBIMS is a natural experiment study, designed in collaboration with stakeholders, that is evaluating the impacts of a major investment to build an ‘all ages and abilities’ (AAA) bicycling network in Victoria, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Embracing the pragmatic paradigm of population health intervention research, IBIMS is evaluating changes in diverse outcomes (bicycling and bicycling safety, equity in spatial access, and economic impacts) in Victoria and two other Canadian cities [ 16 ]. Here, our objective is to estimate the health-related economic impacts of planned bicycle infrastructure investments in the three study cities.…”

Anger while driving in Mexico City

“…The study of driving anger (as an emotion and as the behavior attached to it) is essential as cities become denser, and interactions with others become more frequent. Under these circumstances, driver's emotions can affect the drivers' behavior, which can have effects on the global patterns of traffic [8] and can generate potential risks to others drivers, bikers or pedestrians [26,27].…”

Reproducibility and Replicability in Geographical Analysis

“…But, at the same time, individual data can lead to additional issues such as confidentiality. For example, in a recent project monitoring health impacts of transportation interventions in four cities, researchers grappled with tradeoffs between using nationally available data to ensure replicability across cities versus using detailed data to take advantage of the specific data sets collected by cities but at the expense of comparability between cities (Winters et al 2018).…”