Planning bike lanes with data: ridership, congestion, and path selection
Sheng Liu1, Auyon Siddiq2, Jingwei Zhang2
1University of Toronto; 2University of California - Los Angeles, United States of America
Discussant: Ho-Yin Mak (University of Oxford)
Bike lane expansion promotes cycling and reduces car traffic, but narrows vehicle lanes and amplifies congestion. We study the bike lane planning problem considering the conflicting effects. In an extensive case study in Chicago, we present a consistent estimator for travel-time function and optimize new bike lane locations while enforcing traffic equilibrium. We estimate 25 miles of new bike lanes increase cycling ridership by 76%, with at most an 8% increase in driving time between each OD pair.