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Risk of injury for bicycling on cycle tracks versus in the street
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  • Published on:
    Still more errors and omissions

    When Lusk et al. submit to the editor a formal list of errata to be attached to their article, I expect they will duly correct all the errors, omissions, and false statements that have been brought to their attention, and not just the three they chose to mention here. This would include amongst other items providing a correct explanation for their choices of particular termination points (rather than the non...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    "In Montreal, no greater risk on cycle tracks"
    • Anne C. Lusk, Research Scientist
    • Other Contributors:
      • Peter G. Furth, Patrick Morency, Luis F. Miranda-Moreno, Walter C. Willett, Jack T. Dennerlein

    We regret the two errors that Kary identified. "What this study adds" should read published crash [not injury] rates (the article body states it correctly), and the Rachel length is 1.7 km [not 3.5]. In Table 1, correcting for 1.7 doubles Rachel's absolute incident rates; however, it raises overall crash and injury rates by only 10% to 9.6 and 11.5, respectively. In Table 2, the relative risk comparison is unaffected sinc...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Flaws in the 2010 Lusk Montreal Study - streets with statistically significant results.

    1. Rue de Brebeuf Cycle Track vs. Rue St. Denis between Rachel and Laurier.

    These streets are not comparable.

    Brebeuf (which has a cycle track) is a narrow 40kph slow-moving one- way residential street with one traffic lane and one parking lane.

    Rue St. Denis (which has no cycle track) is a six-lane (two lanes often taken up by parking) 50kph limit two-way highway in a commercial area with lot...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Compendium of errors and omissions, or: What is not in this article

    Injury Prevention asks that responses to articles be kept to less than about 300 words. The volume of errors and omissions in this article by Lusk et al. is so excessive that it took me rather more than that-- including photographs of the actual streets-- just to document them. The result is now hosted on John S. Allen's bicycle pages and can be directly found by searching the internet for e.g. these terms:...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Re:Underscoring the Benefits of Cycle Tracks

    I make brief extra comments in response to Lusk et al.

    It is difficult comparing the poor cycle-specific facilities that I find in Northern Ireland with the lack of cycle-specific facilities typical in the US: neither scenario helps cyclists and any statements about which is to be preferred may never be more than impressionistic.

    However, I would concede that even imperfect cycle-specific facilities pr...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Underscoring the Benefits of Cycle Tracks
    • Anne C. Lusk, Research Associate
    • Other Contributors:
      • Patrick Morency, Luis F. Miranda-Moreno, Walter C. Willett, Jack T. Dennerlein

    We agree with Reinhardt-Rutland's concerns1 about Northern Ireland's poorly designed and policed bicycle facilities but we doubt that the U.S. traditional model of simply treating bicycles as vehicles is better. What works is physically separating bicyclists from fast or heavy motor traffic. Reinhardt-Rutland further suggested that higher fuel costs could effect change where risk assessments have failed. While waiting fo...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Critique of: "Risk of Injury for Bicycling on Cycle Tracks Versus in the Street"

    The investigators did not meaningfully compare Relative Bicycling Risk and Relative Traffic Danger for individual pairs. Such a comparison of their data demonstrates that the Apparent Cycle Track Effect was increased Danger to bicyclists at two cycle tracks, Neutrality at two cycle tracks, and increased Safety at two cycle tracks. This contrasts with the investigators' claim that the six cycle tracks had a combined 28% l...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.
  • Published on:
    Old hypothesis that roads are safer than cycle tracks unsupported by data
    • Anne C. Lusk, Research Scientist
    • Other Contributors:
      • Patrick Morency, Luis F. Miranda-Moreno, Walter C. Willett, Jack T. Dennerlein

    We acknowledge that we did not control for all of the differences in road geometry and building typologies because there are no ideal matched streets (Re: Cooper). However, alternative research designs also have limitation and feasibility issues. For before and after study designs, some of the Montreal cycle tracks are 20 years old, before injury surveillance and traffic counting data systems were available. Limiting to...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.